


The Thing About Fire

by DracoMaleficium



Series: The Thing About Fire [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (God I hope so), (featured heavily), (not between the main characters but involving one of them), Action/Adventure, Angst, Canon Divergence, Dealing With Trauma, Episode: s03e14-15 The Boiling Rock, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Offscreen Rape of a Major Character, Rape Aftermath, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 09:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3405251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boiling Rock is a horrible place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mizuzoku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizuzoku/gifts).



> This fic was requested way back in the summer by the lovely [Rabby](http://mizuzoku.tumblr.com), who was kind enough to commission a Zukka longfic set in the Boiling Rock. Her prompt was very complex and included many juicy elements that, in the end, had stretched the story into over twice its intended length, and still I had to cut many of the requested elements simply to contain it from growing into a giant dragging WIP because that's how I roll. In any case, the Zukka romance, the off-screen noncon (not between Sokka and Zuko) and the h/c as well as Sokka's darker instincts form the bare bones of the request; whether or not I succeeded in blending it into a coherent whole, well, it's up to you guys to judge. 
> 
> I did my best to be respectful in my depiction of the horror of rape and its difficult aftermath, and if I failed in any way, I am sincerely sorry. 
> 
> Another thing you should note is that I set this fic in the same universe as one of my previous oneshots, ["What Makes a Man"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1053779). You don't need to read it to get this one, but it should help understand some of the small references that are scatterred in this story, and the purpose of that was to make the romance more believable and grounded in an already-blooming attraction. It was one of the ways in which I managed to even contain the fic at all ^^
> 
> Oh, and one last thing - this story called for a more experienced Zuko, one whose views on sex wouldn't be entirely marred by what I subject him to in the fic. Hence the liberties I took with adding a bit more people to his sexual history.
> 
> (As if I'd pass up on the chance to sneak Jeeko in. You know me so well.)
> 
> Lots of thanks to Sam, Nele, Angie and Rabby for their tireless support and all the beta work! Any remaining sloppiness is my own.
> 
> Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

If the prison appeared dreary and imposing from the war balloon when it creeped out of the hot volcano mists to sit dark and still in the middle of the ocean like a dead lion turtle, it looks even more so now that Sokka has to tip his head back as far as it goes to even glimpse the top of the wall they crashed at. From the ground, it looks like the prison towers are scraping against the sky, vertigo tilting them to the side as if they’re about to collapse. With the hot, hot air pressing into them from the lake and curling their hair with fingers of hot mist, the Boiling Rock rises up and up and up, a mountain of unforgiving metal that manages to seem cold despite the deathly heat it sprawls on.

It’s black. It’s silent, much like a sea monster is silent before it is woken up to reap chaos and destruction. And, with all its walls and towers and a boiling lake bubbling and hissing all around it, it seems pretty much impenetrable.

And of course penetrating it is exactly what Sokka is here to do.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Sokka,” Zuko whispers somewhere next to him, pretty much vocalizing what Sokka doesn’t let himself think. “There’s no going back now.”

“Thanks for the optimism, buddy,” Sokka mouths back, and his voice barely trembles at all. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Jerkbender shrug. “If you wanted optimism you should have brought your sister. Or Aang,” he points out, and Sokka reluctantly agrees. “So what do we do now?”

Right. Right. Think of the now. Because the now is them standing on black volcanic ground that’s pretty much solidified lava, and it’s likely to gnaw through their shoes with heat any minute, and it would be a wise course of action to do something about it instead of staring up at the great big hulk of the Boiling Rock and biting the insides of his cheeks.

So Sokka tears his eyes away to look at Zuko. It helps, looking at Zuko. The gears in his brain turn with a click. “We find a way to get inside,” he says, trying to sound like he’s in control even though his legs feel a little jelly-ish and his bladder has dramatically shrunk. “A door,” he decides, fighting the jelly-ness. “There’s gotta be a door somewhere on ground level. For… emergencies and stuff. Right?” Now his voice does waver a little when he turns to Zuko for confirmation, but the other guy blessedly doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, he nods. And then he turns to the right and starts walking along the steaming shore, close to the wall so they won’t get spotted from above. All business and focus and.. stuff. Sokka catches a glimpse of his face, carved into stubborn single-mindedness, and is momentarily reminded of Katara in her “get shit done” mode.

He’s not sure how to feel about that.

So maybe it’s a good thing, in a way, that the sight of the Boiling Rock is an excellent distraction. Sokka glances up again, at the looming mass of solid black that looks about as inviting as a dragon’s open maw, and prays to the Spirits his dad is inside.

 

***

 

There is a door. Smallish, and blending in with the rest of the wall so skillfully that they very nearly miss it. It is also, unsurprisingly, sealed shut. They can’t very well flashy-firebend it open or they’ll have a small army of fire-wielding guards descending upon them from the fortress, and for obvious reasons they’d much rather avoid descending of any kind to happen if at all possible. So it takes about half an hour of Zuko pouring steady, concentrated heat into the lock until it’s melted enough for him to kick it open.

Which in and of itself is a ridiculous risk that could very well cost them their heads even before they got inside if someone on the other side spotted or heard them; but when he peers into the stale, dusty gloom and breathes in the sweet-sour stench of mold and damp, Sokka almost whoops. The dust on the floor is so thick you could carve it. It’s exactly what he hoped for.

“All clear,” he tells Zuko as he slips into the pitch-black stench of the corridor. “We’ll need a light.”

On cue, a flower of fire blooms on Zuko’s hand and immediately becomes the center of the world once the heavy door is pulled to behind them, booming with metallic echoes that seem to shake the very floor under their feet. 

For a moment, they freeze in the darkness that leaps up at them the moment Zuko snuffs out his little flame. They breathe as quietly as they can, listening for – footsteps, shouts, an alarm, anything to indicate that someone heard them get in.

One, two, three, four heartbeats…

After he counts to twenty, Sokka allows himself to breathe again.

“No one’s coming to get us,” he whispers, and if he is stating the obvious then so fucking what. “You can do that little flame trick of yours again.”

Zuko does, and once the little fire in his palm scatters the shadows to the walls around them, Sokka starts walking ahead, trying not to think that he would have been rather lost without his handy firebender tagalong. Sure, he probably would have figured something out – he always does – but it’s… 

Convenient. And way quicker. And Zuko seems content to remain a silent, broody presence behind Sokka, which is just as well since Sokka isn’t in a very chatty mood himself now that they’re actually inside. Besides, it is somewhat reassuring to know that he’s not completely on his own. 

So on they walk, choosing at random when the empty corridor forks into two or three, and the most intimidating thing they pass is spider carcasses tangled in old, dusty webs. No one seems to be lurking down here, just like Sokka suspected. It’s simply too damn hot. This close to the boiling lake the temperatures are enthusiastically shooting past any point humans could be reasonably expected to endure, and the old metal has had ample time to absorb all the heat it likes and then some. It seems that not even the Fire Nation is as cruel as to keep anyone in these conditions, but that’s probably because the guards would then have to suffer from the heat too and that would simply be impractical. 

Which all boils down to the fact that at least they are safe, even if their clothes are trying to melt into their skin and Sokka can almost feel the little ticks of hot air latching onto his body and sucking all the moisture out; and safe they stay right until they climb high enough to encounter the first signs of life. 

It’s a door, framed by a thin rectangle of light at the end of the corridor. More light, a bit stronger, trickles through the crack below and streaks the floor. Sokka tip-toes to crouch by it and feels rather than hears – the guy is quieter than spring snowfalls back home – Zuko doing the same behind him. His warmth is pressing into Sokka’s back and he wonders if it’s a firebender thing or if it’s the tiny flame that Zuko is still balancing on his palm. 

In any case, some of that warmth seems to bleed right into Sokka’s cheeks and then the tips of his ear. 

He shuts his eyes for a moment, telling any stupid, inconvenient thoughts to kindly shut up. Can’t afford to be distracted now. There are voices on the other side, for one thing, and the enormity of what they’re about to do suddenly slams into Sokka as though the door opened right into his head.

He turns to Zuko, whose face is pinched and shadowed in orange in the light of the flame, and mouths, “Wait.”

Zuko simply nods and snuffs out the fire, opening the way for the darkness to jump them all at once.

The voices on the other side of the door sound casual and relaxed – probably some sort of cellar, then, because it’s still too low by Sokka’s estimate to be anywhere near the actual cells. He listens and waits, trying to ignore the noise his own heart is making and the rhythm of Zuko’s steady breath right behind him. There’s laughter, brief and easy, and some more conversation, and the fast click of footsteps. The dull bang of metal doors shutting. More voices.

Sokka turns to Zuko again, this time seeing nothing but deeper shadows.

“We need disguises,” he whispers as quietly as he can, and winces when his voice still carries down the empty corridor. “You wouldn’t happen to be familiar with the layout, would you?” he asks after a pause, because it never hurts to make sure.

“No,” Zuko says in a warm whisper that comes out sticky with heat. Sokka tries not to groan as his tentative hopes are crushed. It would be too easy, he supposes, and the Spirits never did like to make anything easy for him. “But I’ve been here before, as a kid,” Zuko adds then, and Sokka perks up again. “It was a long time ago and I don’t remember much, but they did give us a tour, so maybe once we’re inside…”

Sokka nods. “How long ago, exactly?”

Zuko takes a moment to answer. “Very long. My cousin Lu Ten was still alive.”

“Your uncle’s kid?” Sokka blurts before he can put a sock in it; but then again, they _have_ talked about girlfriends already. You can’t really get much more personal than that, which sort of opens the way to the other stuff, Sokka thinks. Hopes. 

“Yeah,” Zuko says simply. And that seems to be it.

“Okay,” Sokka murmurs, electing to press his ear against the door again. It’s gone quiet on the other side, but the sound of someone trying – badly – to carry a tune indicates that it’s not quite safe yet. 

“So,” he whispers, “we wait for it to go quiet and then…”

“We look for disguises,” Zuko finishes.

“Yup.”

“Sokka?”

“What?”

“What if it doesn’t go quiet on the other side? It might be one of the rooms for the guards to rest between shifts. They have night shifts too, you know.”

Sokka feels his heart tightening. Damn it. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he decides. “If Mr. Unfulfilled Minstrel over there doesn’t go away soon, we’ll… I guess we’ll have to knock him out.”

“That’ll raise questions.”

“Yes, well, let’s hope he goes away soon, yeah? Even guards need to take a piss sometime.”

In the end, the singing guard doesn’t exactly go away, but what does happen is almost just as good: after a few more tuneless renditions of _The Girls From Ba Sing Se_ and a few equally choice selections from the Soldier’s Greatest Hits songbook, a different sound replaces the singing, and Sokka never thought hearing someone snore would make him so happy. It’s a full-on, straight-from-the-belly snore, too, starting with a whistle-light wheeze and then building up to a truly impressive HHHHRRRRRONK which sounds rather a lot like a pigchicken being led to the slaughterhouse.

Sokka grins in the darkness. _Perfect_.

“That’s our chance,” he whispers as another massive HHHHRRRRRRONK! carries through the door. “We just need to make sure we open those doors quietly…”

But Zuko is already on it. It’s the loss of body warmth that first alerts Sokka to the fact that Jerkbender is on his feet and moving, and he shivers slightly when the chill from the corridor grabs at his suddenly exposed back. Then, Zuko’s boot-clad leg brushes his shoulder as it tenses against the door, so he stands up and holds his breath.

Slowly, very slowly, the door gives way. The snoring climbs and falls without a hitch in its determined rhythm, and they squeeze inside into what is, indeed, a dank cellar, stacked full of boxes and crates from floor to ceiling. On the floor sprawls their friend the musical snorer, propped up against a crate and hugging close to his chest a bottle that, judging by the smell, contains enough alcohol to knock out an ostrich horse. 

Sokka crouches by him and prods him experimentally, just to be on the safe side. The man gives a satisfied “harrumph” and continues his Well-Rested Drunk Symphony for Nose and Smacking Lips. 

“I bet we could take his uniform now and he wouldn’t even wake up,” Sokka muses in a whisper, turning to Zuko, who’s closing the door behind them. 

Zuko throws one look at the guard and smirks dryly. “He’s too big. We could both put it on at the same time and there’d still be room.”

“Yeah.” Sokka stands up again and glances at the other door, at the other end of the cellar. “We need to find some kind of uniform storage.”

“By sneaking around in the most tight-security prison in the country,” Zuko supplies helpfully. 

“Yup, that about covers it.”

Sokka grins at Zuko even as his insides writhe about like worms inside a dead hippocow. Zuko, surprisingly, grins back, and Sokka wonders if his insides are just as wriggly as his own right now. 

“Lead the way, your princeliness,” Sokka offers with a grand gesture to the door, because out of the two of them it’s Zuko who’s been here before.

Zuko frowns and considers. “Ex-princeliness, if anything,” he says softly.

And then grins at Sokka again, a bright, tightly feral flash of white teeth, before walking noiselessly up to the door.

Sokka swallows. He doesn’t understand the guy, he really doesn’t, but he thinks that Zuko really should smile more often, which is unnerving enough as thoughts go, but not exactly a surprise. He’s thought that before, once or twice, back at the Western Air Temple, and was unnerved by it then too. He decides not to dwell on it. Nor on the fact that, ever since Zuko’s bang of an appearance in their little ragtag family, there has been a great many thoughts he’s chosen not to dwell on. 

He presses close to Zuko as Jerkbender slowly opens the door, just a crack to see if it’s safe. They’re standing close enough that he feels the release of tension from Zuko’s muscles when he sighs a little and mumbles, “Clear.”

By now the worms in Sokka’s belly are having a veritable dance party that would put Aang’s to shame, but he tries to swallow the nausea and pushes at Zuko’s back. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They sneak out into another dark corridor, one that’s not as oppressively steamy and stifling as the ones they’ve just conquered, and Zuko shakes his head.

“We’ll never get away with it.”

 

***

 

About an hour later they’re rummaging through uniforms and, to all intents and purposes, getting away with it.

Particles of dust leap in the air as Sokka loots through the shelves, hoping desperately that the standard issue sizes take his body build into account. Next to him Zuko is having similar trouble, which – yeah, Sokka is not above admitting that it’s satisfying. Zuko still has more muscle definition and mass than Sokka, but he’s hardly the hulky straight-backed ponytailed jerk of yore and whatever it was that made him lose weight, it definitely worked to boost Sokka’s self-confidence.

So what if it’s shallow? Sokka is in the middle of a high-security Fire Nation prison and has swallowed down his own heart at least a dozen times over the last hour – skulking along corridors full of guards is by no stretch an easy feat – and he’s still faintly sick, and his thoughts are buzzing with nerves and adrenaline in equal amounts, and if shallow thoughts keep him distracted from the reality of the situation then he’s damn well entitled to think them, thank you very much. 

At least his hands aren’t shaking. The wobbly knees he can hide well enough, but if Zuko saw how much he’s actually distraught over the entire thing, Sokka would never live it down. 

The door’s locked on the inside so they don’t need to hurry, but they do anyway, if only to avoid awkward questions. Most of the uniforms are clearly designed to fit a very specific kind of body type – model Grown Muscly Man, Average Height, Thighs Like Tree Trunks and Shoulders You Could Balance Buckets On, with a bonus of Square Jaw and Neck Thicker Than Sokka’s Arms. Sokka tries one of them on, just to see, and ends up looking marginally less ridiculous than Han and his pointy Fire Navy armor. So no. He keeps searching, cheeks beetroot-hot, and swats away Zuko’s amused chortle as he goes.

The thing that surprises him is that there are uniforms here obviously designed to fit women, and he almost wishes Katara were here so he could point it out and see her reaction. But then he remembers princess Azula and her merry band of Dangerous Ladies, and suddenly the fact that the Fire Nation has more of those doesn’t seem so odd anymore. Plus, they do have female guards out on the streets, so why not at the Boiling Rock?

Women can do the same job just as well, says a light voice in his brain. It sounds so very much like Suki that Sokka’s stomach lurches a little.

And anyway, he doesn’t _really_ wish Katara were here. Not even remotely. He still remembers how quietly terrified he was for her when she got it into her head to break into a prison for earthbenders, and – no, he definitely does not want to revisit some of the darker fears he had back then. 

“Here,” Zuko says suddenly, bending over to peer into a low shelf and pulling out a uniform set. “These look like they’re for interns. Let’s try them.”

He hands the clothes and armor to Sokka, and then starts stripping right then and there like it’s no big deal. 

Which it shouldn’t be. But… well, but it kinda _is_ a big deal. Not because Sokka is _shy_ ; shyness, in his world, is a privilege he simply cannot afford. You don’t tend to get a whole lot of privacy when you’re living in an igloo in a community more tightly knit than those fancy dresses the Upper Ring folk like to show off, and camping doesn’t exactly afford that in spades either. He’s always been perfectly content running around in nothing but his underwear and slicing off quick, quiet moments to wank when the others wouldn’t know– that is, when it was only him, Aang and Katara, and then Toph, who can’t see anything anyway so Sokka suspects she doesn’t really count. 

And all right, technically Zuko’s on their side now so they’re gonna have to get used to including him in their little domestic rituals _eventually_. Only… 

Only it hasn’t happened yet. The miserable bastard’s always the first one up, springing out of bed like a tightly-woven little mechanical toy wound to rise at the ass-crack of dawn every single day without fail, and he sleeps in the random room they allocated to him, well out of everyone’s way, instead of outside on a bedroll with the rest of them. Which, really, is just as well. Not that Sokka doesn’t trust him, because by now he kind of does – a weird thing to realize when you’re in the process of pushing your pants down, to be sure, but there you have it. But Jerkbender is different. He doesn’t quite _fit_ , is the thing, and certain episodes with villages burning and children screaming come to mind, but it’s not even that that makes Sokka’s movements slower than they would have been had it been, say, Aang here with him. It’s just the general… Zukoness. 

That, and, well. Sokka would never be caught dead even thinking it in a louder tone, but the guy, for all that he lost bulk, is still ripped. Depressingly so. The first time he spotted Zuko training Aang with his shirt off, Sokka decided he was not going to wander around shirtless in his presence if he can help it, and he’s managed to hold on to that resolution so far. 

Not that it’s ever gonna be an issue if Zuko stubbornly keeps bathing apart from the group, too. Sokka wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he actually joined them.

Anyway, he’s rambling now and his thoughts scatter every which way – probably a defense mechanism, that – but again, it’s definitely not _shyness_ that’s making him uncomfortable with putting his own body on display for Zuko to see and judge. And if Sokka is stealing glances – very covertly, that needs to be emphasized – and Zuko’s, well, himself, and even though they did talk about girlfriends earlier, and sparred with one another before, the situation is still rather intimate, and…

Sokka’s glance steals to the side in just the right moment to catch Zuko bending down in nothing but his red loincloth to pull up the uniform pants, and he looks away just as quickly, and swears under his breath. It would be all too easy to pretend that it’s just the heat of the lake that’s slowly rotting his brain, but Sokka never saw much sense in lying to himself and he’s not about to start now. 

Zuko is good looking. There it is, plain as day. And the gist of it, the bare crux of the thing, is that… well, Sokka notices not only because has an appreciation for the aesthetic in all shape and form, for all that he’s tried to pretend otherwise. No. He can’t exactly pin-point when the Zuko-noticing started, but the sight of the big, bad prince of the Fire Nation cradling a turtleduckling in that broad palm of his comes to mind. It was certainly a moment of learning for Sokka, and he can’t deny that he’s started seeing their newest addition differently after that, and looking, and considering, and – perhaps feeling a little hotter for it. 

And very, very confused, because you don’t start noticing another guy and thinking how good looking he is, all with the familiar heavy-light twist to his stomach, without at least the minimal amount of confusion. Especially if you’ve had a girlfriend before. Which Sokka has. Two of them, even, and – dammit. And he recognizes the reactions for what they are. 

Maybe not exactly a crush, but… interest. Yeah, that’s definitely there, fuck it all sideways. 

He’s been pretty good at shoving it aside for the most part, and taking extra care to avoid any potentially shirtless firebending besides, but it’s one thing to hang out with Teo, Haru and the Duke on the other side of a huge ancient temple while the aforementioned shirtless firebending practice is in progress, and quite another to try and ignore a heart-stopping display of pale, muscled prince stripping effortlessly next to him in a cramped storage closet. Sokka pulls his own uniform pants up with a flourish, eyes obsessively fixed on the pieces of clothing, and orders his very unhelpful adolescent reactions to kindly shut the fuck up.

And anyway, he has a girlfriend. Sort of. So there. 

He feels a little guilty that he only remembered about Suki now rather than at the very beginning of this spirited internal tangent, but luckily that’s when Zuko decides to reveal his hidden talent for timing and hisses, “Stop standing there philosophizing and hurry up before they catch us!” 

So Sokka does the smart thing and makes the executive decision to simply shelf this internal debate for a more convenient time, or better yet, for never again.

Zuko’s mostly dressed by now. That helps.

What definitely does _not_ help is that he heaves an impatient huff and strides over to Sokka to help him – rather more forcibly than it’s strictly necessary, Sokka would like to point out – with the shoulder and shin guards, and then he grabs a helmet from the rack and plants it on Sokka’s head so roughly Sokka can feel his brain rattling a little inside.

“Sorry,” Zuko murmurs, and astonishingly, for a moment he looks like he means it. “I, uh, miscalculated that a bit.”

Sokka blinks and wills his eyes to stop watering. “Ya think?” he bites back, glaring at Zuko through the slits in the helmet. He can feel his eyelashes brushing against metal and can already tell this is gonna get old real fast. “Damn, those things are heavy.”

“You should try walking around in regular armor,” Zuko mutters, fitting his own helmet on. 

“I did.” Sokka reaches for the standard issue handcuffs and other assorted peacekeeping paraphernalia the guards are apparently required to keep at the belt.

There is a beat of silence, and then Zuko says, “What?”

“I wore that stupid armor for a while,” Sokka confesses distractedly, strapping the cuffs and other shit that only makes the whole stupid thing weigh him down more. “We hijacked one of your ships and pretended to be you guys after Ba Sing Se. It’s hilarious how long we kept getting away with it, too. Your Navy needs some serious tightening of security, buddy.” And then he adds, “Oh, and our ship was bigger than your old one. Just thought you should know.”

He’s a little peeved when instead of a gratifying gasp of outrage, he gets a snort that’s caught somewhere between bitter and amused. “That’s not as impressive as you think,” Zuko says in that same, sharp-edged tone. “My sister’s _cruise ship_ is bigger than my old one used to be. Every single Navy ship you could capture would be, too. Father made sure of that.”

Sokka considers this for a moment while Zuko is strapping his own equipment on, and decides, “That doesn’t make sense though. Why would _you_ get the smallest ship? Weren’t you the crown prince?”

“A banished one,” Zuko says, shrugging. He’s turned away from Sokka, so reading his face is impossible. “There were no privileges in that. I was disgraced. Father made sure everyone knew.”

“Man, what did you _do_?” Sokka asks impulsively, because even for a monster Fire Lord ruling over a land of evil that sounds kind of harsh.

Zuko keeps his back straight and his head down when the handcuffs click into place around the loop in his belt. “I stood up for what I believed in,” he whispers, and his voice hardens in a way that reminds Sokka of a moment caught in ice from what seems like a lifetime ago, and another voice, just as steeled-over, saying, _You can’t knock me down_.

It’s disturbing. And all kinds of wrong. Not to mention it’s clear now that Sokka’s inadvertently waded so deep into emotional manure that the stench of it floats up and thickens the air, but it hasn’t quite clogged his nose yet so he wades in just a little deeper before he can stop himself. “You and your dad really don’t like each other much, huh.”

He wants the words back as soon as they leave his mouth because Zuko turns and _looks_ at him, and with that helmet on it’s impossible to read his normally expressive face, which only makes the tight, sour curve of his mouth all the more creepy. 

He shrugs and whispers, “That’s one way to put it.”

Now the emotional stench of the _Here There be Dragons_ territory not only clogs Sokka’s nose, but stirs his stomach into a boil, and it’s time to back off, and back off quick. He cracks a smile that’s probably about as convincing as Jet’s _I totally don’t want to murder a bunch of innocent villagers, honest_ used to be, and puts his hands on his hips. 

“Right, well, anyway, we’re all ready and disguised, it’s time to go! We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Wait.” Zuko reaches out with his hand in the general direction of Sokka’s face, and some absurd expectations flash in Sokka’s racing brain before the pale fingers tug, disappointingly, on his shoulder guard straps. “You need to redo that. It’s too loose, not regulation, someone could give you heat for that.”

The fingers start tugging at the straps as he speaks, and he steps closer. Sokka watches his downcast eyes for a moment. “No, we wouldn’t want any heat,” he murmurs distractedly as Zuko tugs and pulls and adjusts. “That’s no good.”

Zuko is very close, and his breath is very warm, and for a moment Sokka thinks he might be coming down with something, and also a colony of birds might have taken off in his throat, damn the feathery bastards.

“Okay.” Zuko adjusts the heavy shoulder guards on Sokka one last time and gives him a critical once-over. “You’re good now. Let’s go.”

“Yeah.” Sokka swallows, wondering if the press of cold air that prickles him after Zuko’s stepped back is going to be a regular occurrence. He tries not to shiver. “Yeah, let’s.”

And then he shakes himself awake and squares his shoulders, because Zuko is about to open the door. 

The thing about fire, Sokka thinks when he joins him by the door and darts outside after Zuko, is that it can be pretty mesmerizing – right until it burns your skin off.

 

***

 

He is still thinking about the cooler, about the shivering hulk of that giant brute of a firebender and the smirk on the Warden’s face when he lets his feet carry him back in the general direction of the yard.

Mostly, he’s thinking that the Fire Nation are assholes, and it’s enlightening to see just how deep their assholery runs. Every time he sees new proof of that he feels it feeding something dark inside of him, something that he’d never, ever talk about with Aang or Katara but which has been there nonetheless ever since the day he saw his mother’s blood splattered on the floor of their house. Sokka doesn’t really have a name for it, nor does he want one – he’s heard that naming things gives them a life and the last thing he wants is for _that thing_ to claw into him from the inside for good – but he can feel it throbbing, heating him up with all the wrong kinds of energy, like his own personal fire. 

It’s burning in him now, which doesn’t even make sense because this time it’s Koh-damned firebenders being screwed over by other firebenders. It shouldn’t bother him. But…

Sokka remembers the prison of metal that used to trap the earthbenders. He remembers wondering, quietly, at the amount of thought, planning, designing and sheer preparation that must have gone into that project. He remembers being revolted at the idea that someone, somewhere, sat down with a bunch of other assholes and _planned_ all of this years ahead, down to the tiniest detail, with the sole purpose of conquering the Earth Kingdom and keeping its benders contained.

And much as he’d like to put the entire episode behind him – it’s still giving him nightmares that he’ll never bring up in front of Katara – he remembers Hama’s stories of a prison for waterbenders, cages suspended above ground, chains, shackles, dried air and daily doses of water administered carefully from a cup on a stick. 

And now this. A prison designed especially to keep _fire_ benders in, because apparently the Fire Nation does not leave anything to chance. 

That poor bastard looked so fucking cold.

Now, Sokka can’t help but wonder what the Fire Nation would do to keep the airbenders locked up, and he wraps his arms around himself briefly despite the clammy heat sticking to his skin from the steam of the lake. 

But they didn’t have to come up with anything in the end because good old Sozin took care of that, didn’t he. Murdering a whole nation instead of imprisoning them must have saved the fuckers a whole lot of tax money.

That dark thing inside Sokka coils and burns a little brighter, and Sokka thinks, not for the first time, that he’d be able to kill a man with its warmth crawling up his veins. It’s only through sheer luck that it hasn’t happened yet, but it could, he _knows_ it could in moments like this one, and Sokka will not deny it if it’s just before himself.

He steps out onto a balcony overlooking the yard, breathes in the humidity that curls the hair at the base of his neck, and walks over to clutch the railing. 

The cooler could be practical. That’s what he has to focus on. If they find Dad – when, not if, when – then they could use it. Sokka looks out over a yard bustling with prisoners, some of them restless, some resigned, small figures in identical red rags, and tries to will the cogs in his brain to keep turning. 

Which is how Zuko finds him with his sad eyes and sad voice and his, _I asked around the lounge, looks like your father’s not here, I’m sorry Sokka_ , and then Sokka can’t really think anymore because for a moment it seems like everything is crumbling in on itself around him. And then rebuilding just as quickly when he spots a familiar face in the crowd.

His father may not be here, but Suki is, and Sokka will work with what he’s got.

 

***

 

“You go ahead,” Zuko urges. “I’ll wait here and let you know if there’s any trouble.”

Sokka manages to spare a moment to feel grateful, and flashes Zuko a smile. 

“You know, I never thought a firebender’d be my wingman.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, which looks hilarious with his helmet on, and pushes Sokka towards the door to Suki’s cell. “Just go, idiot.”

“Jerkbender.”

Zuko’s lips curve up. Sokka’s smile settles into something warmer.

But the moment is discarded the minute he looks to the door. Something light and heavy all at once flutters in his stomach, and it feels remarkably like being sick. He felt the very same way before he braved Dad’s camp in Chameleon Bay, and now that he’s about to see Suki again it’s – not worse, exactly, but _different_ , especially with the person who also inspires some serious fluttering in his own right standing right behind him. 

Why does everything always have to be so damned complicated? Can’t the Spirits leave him alone for once, and spare him the confusion of finding two people attractive at the same time on top of everything else? 

Still, he expects that the world will right itself again when he actually sees Suki face to face. It’s bound to. He hopes for that with all of his might when he pushes his weight against the door to force it open, when he slides inside, when he closes it behind himself, and looks – 

“What is it?” comes her voice, hard-edged and brimming with challenge, in the near-darkness of the cell. “Did I do something wrong?”

Sokka’s heart aches at her spiked tone just as it toes the edge of exploding with joy.

She’s here. She’s here, and she’s all right, _thank you, world_.

“You mean you don’t recognize me?” he asks, feeling like he could launch into the air and give Aang and his new glider a run for his money. 

_She’s all right, she’s all right, she’s all right_ …

Suki’s forehead is marred by frown-lines as she purses her beautiful lips and looks away. “You people all look the same to me.”

Sokka grins, feeling lighter still. “Oh? Then maybe you’ll recognize this,” he says before moving in to steal a kiss.

She doesn’t. Instead, he finds himself flying against the door, and his thoughts scatter to the winds for a moment when the back of his head hits heavy steel. _Ouch_.

Only when he notices that his head feels much lighter and Suki is launching herself at him with a teary, “Sokka!”, does he realize that his helmet fell off at the impact. But it’s all for the best, really. All at once his arms are full of warm, soft girl, and her hair is in his mouth, and her breasts are pressed against his chest, and her bare arms are closing around his neck. Sokka closes his eyes and breathes her in. She smells of – well, she smells of the Boiling Rock, and her skin has lost some of that earthy forest whiff he spent his nights fantasizing about, and her hair smells of some bland, odorless soap now which is somehow even more disappointing. Not that Sokka cares. She is here, and she’s okay, and she’s hugging Sokka close, and he holds her closer still because that’s how things should be and maybe, somehow, everything will be all right.

It’s much too soon that she pulls them both to their feet, though it would have felt too soon had she done it a day from now to be honest. Sokka knows that there’s no time. Zuko’s standing guard outside and he’s probably sticking out like a very sore, very angry thumb when all the other cells are unguarded, and Sokka needs to get his head back in gear. Suki is warming up in his arms and that’s the most important thing…

Only she isn’t anymore. She’s stepping out of his arms now, and though she’s still grinning, she’s no longer holding on to him. 

Sokka lets it go. There’ll be time for a proper reunion later, Spirits be willing.

“The other Kyoshi warriors,” he says. “Are they here?”

Suki shakes her head. “No. I don’t know where they are. They locked me in here because I’m the leader.”

Okay. That’s… that’s better, probably. It’ll be easier to escape with just the three of them instead of a whole group of people. 

“Well, you won’t be here for long,” Sokka promises her firmly. “I’m busting you out.”

“It’s so good to see you, Sokka,” Suki says softly. Her blue eyes gleam in the struggling light in a way that makes Sokka’s breath catch, and his hand reaches out to her cheek all by itself…

Suki’s smile changes into something tight and pinched. She shakes her head while she takes a step away, out of reach.

“I mean it,” she says just as Sokka’s heart makes a painful dive to his feet. “It _is_ good to see you. I’m thankful you came. But – things have changed.”

“Oh.” That’s all he can say for now. His throat feels like the heat’s steamed away all of his saliva. “Oh.”

“Please, Sokka, don’t take this the wrong way,” she urges. “I care about you. You’re a wonderful person.”

“But?” Sokka asks, swallowing over what feels like sandpaper.

Suki blinks, but she doesn’t look away from him. “But I’ve been here a long time. I haven’t seen you in months. And there’s someone…”

Sokka doesn’t want to ask, and hates himself for asking anyway. “Who is he?”

Suki looks at him strangely. “She,” she corrects him in a level tone. “She, Sokka. I’m so sorry, but…”

She is cut off by two rapid knocks on the other side of the metal door. The sound jolts Sokka like a shot of lightning straight to the belly, but even that doesn’t quite stop the chasm of hurt from opening up under his feet. 

Hurt and confusion, because _she? Really?_

He wants to ask, and there are so many questions reeling in his head. So very many, because _none of this makes sense_. He looks at Suki with some of them – he can imagine – crowding right there on his face, and her own face is pinched with discomfort and something else besides, something he doesn’t recognize.

Maybe because he doesn’t know her well enough after all. 

The thought is akin to an ice bucket emptied over his head, but suddenly there are voices outside, Zuko’s and some woman’s, and Sokka knows there’s no time.

“We’ll talk more later,” he decides, unable to quite look into Suki’s big eyes any longer. “I’ll get you once we figure out an escape plan.”

“Look, Sokka, there’s this one other thing I need to – “

Something thumps against the door outside, so hard the metal rattles accusingly. Sokka jumps at the sound, whipping his head around, secretly grateful that he has an excuse to look away. But that possibly means Zuko’s in trouble, and that’s – shit. 

Sokka glances at Suki again, her face pained and apologetic, and shakes his head. “Later,” he repeats. She tries to open her mouth to speak again and Sokka just _knows_ he can’t quite hear whatever it is she wants to tell him, so he quickly adds, “It’s good to see you.”

Her smile is small and brief – too brief. She comes closer even as the noises of a scuffle outside intensify. “No, Sokka, you need to _listen_ , there’s something I have to –“

Zuko and the guard are letting out groans of struggle on the other side of the door. Sokka’s heart clenches with each sound. _They’re fighting_. “Later,” he hisses. “My friend’s outside and he’s in trouble.”

“But that’s exactly what I – “

Sokka bolts out of the cell, propelled by equal parts concern for Zuko and the cold, cold knowledge that he needs to get the fuck out of there before he starts to scream. And it just so happens that he makes it out in time for the woman who’s wrestling Zuko to cry, “Guard! Help! I think he’s an impostor!”

And that’s when shit really goes to hell in a handbasket. There’s nothing for Sokka to do but tackle Zuko to the ground and play along, and his heart aches to the point of bleeding now because _fuck, none_ of this was supposed to happen. Now Zuko’s cover is blown and Ozai will know his son’s been breaking into prisons in his downtime, and there’ll be Trouble heaping on their heads faster than they can say “sorry,” and Dad’s not even _here_ , and his girlfriend’s just told him she’s left him for another woman.

They’re fucked, they’re fucked, they’re so fucked… 

“Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out,” he whispers into Zuko’s ear when he marches him after the guard, because he needs to say _something_.

Zuko offers nothing in return, but Sokka can feel the pulse under the skin of his wrists fluttering altogether too quickly. Sokka squeezes those wrists in a way he hopes is reassuring, even though it feels like the floor might disappear from under them any second now.

Zuko doesn’t believe his reassurances, and neither, when it comes down to it, does Sokka. 

 

***

 

He has to give this to the bastards – they’re efficient. It takes them next to no time at all to process Zuko. Sokka, being “the new guy” – of whom there’s apparently a buttload, because no one even thinks to question his new guy cred, and Sokka both does and doesn’t like what it says about this place that the guards are constantly rotating in and out – is not privy to the proceedings, so he ends up hanging around the yard and pretending to have stuff to do. Which is frustrating, but which is still better than actually having stuff to do, or – worse yet – hanging around Suki’s cell. Sokka doesn’t think he can even look at her right now.

But worrying about Zuko helps him keep his shit together, gives him some of that much-needed sharpness; and he pushes all Suki-related thoughts out for later as much as he can while he paces and glowers at prisoners from behind the slits in his helmet. Right until he spots a small procession of guards marching Zuko, not an hour after his capture and already dressed in the same shapeless prison rags all prisoners wear, to an empty cell.

He follows at a distance. They don’t spot him, too busy escorting the prisoner – who strides in the middle of the procession with his head held high because _of course he does_ , and Sokka is taken by surprise by the sudden touch of protective fondness he feels for the daft fucker. It doesn’t quite push out the worry, though, and Sokka hides behind a corner to peek and wait for when it’s clear to sneak into the cell.

His insides perform a sickening somersault when he sees the Warden of all people stride inside a few minutes later, but he stays put, praying to the Spirits for _something, anything_ , to get them out of this damned mess. 

It’s all his fault, all of it, and if anything happens to Jerkbender because Sokka needed to go and fucking _prove himself_ …

But the Warden leaves after only a minute. Sokka holds his breath and glues himself to the shadows, counting. He gets as far as ten before he decides he’s had enough, detaches himself from the wall and, with a hammering heart, braves the corridor.

If someone catches him loitering, he’ll make something up on the fly. He’s good at making stuff up on the fly. And he absolutely cannot wait even one second longer.

There’s no one guarding Zuko’s cell at this point, so Sokka’s stride gets quicker. By the time he’s at the door, he’s practically half a pace away from a full-tilt run, but the few guards that can be spotted around all look like they’re busy with something important and pay him about as much attention as they would an ant. Sokka still darts a few glances around just to make sure and opens the cell door. 

“Zuko!” he hisses into the gloom. “You in there?” 

He sees him perched on the cot. Zuko simply nods at him. His face looks a bit like the skin there is pulled too tight over his bones, but that’s actually familiar – Sokka’s seen that look on him before. It’s still unsettling to see it again, though, especially when Sokka remembers the face he made when he held a quacking turtleduckling in his hand. 

Sokka’s stomach contracts. He closes the door behind himself and lets it take his weight, just for a little bit.

“Well,” he exhales, meeting Zuko’s eyes. “This has all gone to shit.”

Zuko draws in a deep breath. Lets it out. “I’ve seen worse.”

Sokka bites down on a smile. “Yeah. Me too, I guess. At least they still don’t know about me.”

Zuko nods. “You made the right call. If they caught you too this would have gotten a whole lot messier.”

Sokka nods and leans a bit more against the door. The metal is surprisingly cool against his bare forearms, which he’s grateful for. 

“So,” he tries after a moment of silence. “How bad was it?”

Zuko shrugs. “They recognized me,” he says flatly. “For some reason the Warden won’t expose me just yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And,” he winces as though he’s bitten on a pepper seed, “it turns out he’s Mai’s uncle.”

Sokka takes a moment to let that sink in with all its implications, then whistles. “Man,” he whispers. “Your luck is even worse than mine.”

Zuko snorts. It’s hard to tell if it’s because he’s amused by Sokka’s remark or if that’s his way of coping. At this point, it really could go either way.

“But at least you saw _your_ girlfriend, right?” Zuko asks him after yet another stilted moment filled with a very pronounced lack of words. “I mean, the one that hasn’t turned into the moon.” He pauses, frowns at his hands. “Unless it’s the same one. But probably not. She didn’t look very moon-like to me. Someone would have noticed if my father put the moon in jail.” 

That pulls a rather hysterical-sounding snort out of Sokka, and suddenly he wonders whether Zuko would be up to having a bad-luck-off, because the reminder of Suki and their conversation from earlier makes him reevaluate his bad luck chart yet again. Maybe they could introduce points and rewards, like an extra piece of meat at dinner, or the winner could get a pastry next time they get close enough to civilization to go shopping. Zuko seems like he could be up for that. 

“She’s a different one, don’t worry,” he says, cracking a smile. And then he cracks it away again, because the words _You guys have done enough to fuck with the moon for ten generations_ are trying to spill out and Sokka has learned enough to try and keep them in. He knows better than to blame Zuko for something Zhao tried to do, now. 

“Huh,” Zuko says. And that seems to be it as far as his commentary on Sokka’s immense popularity with the opposite sex goes.

Which is probably Sokka’s cue to tell Zuko that he got himself busted just so Sokka could get his ass dumped. How does one break news like that to a guy, anyway?

Then, a voice that sounds a lot like Katara pipes in to snark, _Gee, how about you begin by showing some gratitude?_ Sokka can practically see the accompanying eyeroll, and nods to himself. Right.

“Look, Zuko, I appreciate what you did for me,” he says. “Thanks, man. That was very… big of you. I owe you one.”

That makes Zuko’s face soften, not quite into a smile, but considerably enough that the shadows move from his face. His forehead smoothens into something that looks almost pleased – and surprised. The sight grazes Sokka somewhere tender. 

“It didn’t quite go as planned, though,” he whispers reluctantly, shutting his eyes and remembering the scene with Suki from earlier. 

Zuko sits up. “What do you mean?”

“Well…”

He is cut off by the bell, which spears Sokka’s ears with a shrill sound. It startles him away from the door and effectively tosses any strings of sentences he might have wound together back into tangled balls of wool. And that is just as well, for a minute later the very door he had been leaning on is buzzed open, admitting what scarce light can be found in the corridors outside. 

Shit. 

“We really need to figure out the routine in this place,” Sokka whispers, jumping into the shadowy corner of the cell so that no one will see him inside. “A few more scares like that and we’ll be done for.”

“I have to go.” Zuko is up from the unforgiving-looking cot and approaching the threshold, peering warily outside where prisoners are falling like drops into a red human river flowing down the stairs. “Everyone else is leaving. I guess it’s work time.”

“You got your assignment?”

“Yeah. Cleaning duty. I’ll be down in block 3, mopping the floors.”

“Right.” Sokka commits that to memory. “Okay. I think I might have a plan, so hang on. I’ll find you.”

Zuko passes him with a slight nod and then he, too, joins the stream of people steadily trickling down the narrow staircases. Sokka takes a few minutes before he leaves the cell, heart clenched and thoughts tripping over themselves in their hurry to wave solutions at him – and most of them point urgently to the cooler.

Now, if he can only figure out where block 3 is.

 

***

 

Procuring blueprints of the place only takes a few minutes. It helps that he looks like a hapless intern, and he doesn’t hesitate to play that to his advantage when he almost pops his eyes out with how hard he’s eyeballing the secretary guard, or whatever he’s called. Once he gets a feel for the organization behind the prison’s seemingly random array of blocks and corridors, he all but sprints back to where the coolers sit, grim and heavy and hissing blessedly arctic air into the stifling heat of the volcanic lake. 

There are no guards around, which probably means that the poor bloke Chit Sang has been let out already. Good. Sokka takes the opportunity to poke around and reassure himself of the soundness of his hypotheses, because he really needs to be damn sure before he introduces the idea to Zuko and – he gulps uneasily – Suki. By the time he’s satisfied his fingers feel ready to freeze off and remain glued to the metal, which, come to think of it, would probably be a nice addition to the overall grim décor. He has a feeling the Warden would enjoy the morbid touch. 

So far so good. Sokka rubs his hands together to coax his blood into moving again, casts one last look at the silent row of doors guarding their way to freedom, and starts sprinting in the direction he hopes will take him to the elusive block 3. 

“Hey, you!” A deep, grainy female voice catches him when he’s halfway down the stairs. “New guy! Wait!”

 _Okay, Sokka, stay cool. Keep calm. It’s all right. There’s absolutely no reason to look like you’re about to throw up your own heart._ He takes a moment to tighten himself into a veneer of composure before he turns to face the woman behind him, who’s skipping two steps at a time and wearing an expression that doesn’t exactly spell doom, but that doesn’t look like she’s about to ask him out for a drink either.

Later Sokka will appreciate the irony of that thought.

“You’re the one who helped me out with the prince,” she tells him. It’s not a question.

Ah. “No need to thank me,” Sokka states with all the self-assurance he most definitely doesn’t feel. “It was my duty. Good thing you spotted the guy. Wonder how he got in here?”

Her eyes narrow. The fact that he can see it through the helmet probably doesn’t mean anything good.

“What I’d like to know,” she whispers, “is what the hell he was doing outside that cell in the first place.”

Sokka forces himself to think. It’s tougher than he expected, mostly because a good portion of his brain is too busy screaming in panic. “How should I know?” He forces a shrug. “Maybe he was lost?”

“The most wanted man in the country blew his cover in the toughest prison in the Fire Nation just so I wouldn’t get into that cell,” the guard points out, hands on her hips. “That doesn’t look like someone who’s lost. To me it looks like he was protecting something… or someone.”

 _Oh shit oh shit oh shit, she’s a smart one. Why did it have to be a smart one?_ Sweat is beginning to bead on Sokka’s forehead and tickling the skin as it trails down under the helmet, and he hopes he can pretend it’s from the heat. 

“Maybe he just isn’t very clever,” he suggests over a smile that he hopes to the Spirits looks uninterested. 

She smirks. The sight is not reassuring. “Maybe,” she hums. “Or maybe he has an accomplice for whatever it is he was trying to accomplish here.”

“That girl _is_ a Kyoshi Warrior,” Sokka points out hopefully. “Maybe they’re in cahoots. I’d keep my eye on her if I were you!”

After that, everything happens very fast. He barely manages to spot the guard’s fist shooting forward and grabbing the front of his shirt, and then he is being shoved backwards. His hands flail and manage to grip the railing by sheer luck alone, and just in time, because the guard is pushing him over it as though she’s planning to throw him five floors to the ground.

The fist twists in his shirt and keeps him off-balance. Her eyes drill into him much like Azula’s massive contraption drilled through the walls of Ba Sing Se. The message in them is clear: Sokka is well and truly fucked.

“I _am_ keeping my eye on her,” she snarls, her breath puffing on his chin and almost as hot as Zuko’s. “What were you doing in her cell, _new guy?_ ”

In the midst of panic, a sharp edge of thought slices its way through and into Sokka’s mouth. “And what were _you_ doing, trying to get in?”

“I have every right to go into any cell I choose. I’m under orders.”

“Well, so am I!”

“Good, so you _can_ be convincing if you try.” Suddenly, the grip on his shirt disappears, and the angrily narrowed eyes cease to obscure the world. “Keep it up.”

One by one, Sokka’s fingers uncurl from their death grip on the railing, but he stands by it, its solid metal support a welcome grounding point in a world that suddenly makes no sense whatsoever.

What the everloving…?

It’s only when her mouth twists into something that could, in a bad light and with a bucketful of good intentions, be possibly mistaken for a smile that he realizes he’s vocalized that last bit.

“Follow me,” she orders.

Sokka manages to get as far as “But” before she spears him with a look that would have intimidated water into running uphill with no bending required. Sokka has absolutely no choice in the matter as his body shoots up to attention and follows her on legs made of lead.

“Uh,” he starts after a few minutes. “No offense, but why did you bring me to a storage closet?”

The guard leans against stacks of mops and brooms and regards him much like Katara when something particularly thoughtless slips past Sokka’s mind filters. “It’s private,” she explains. “And my matter with you is extremely private.”

“Oh.” Sokka considers this, which is somewhat challenging with a faceful of stinky wet mop head yarn slapping him in the nose. “ _Oh_.” The copper piece drops, and he tries to put as much distance between himself and the guard as possible in the cramped little space that stinks of dirt, wet cloths and some strange sterile soap. “No offense, again, but I’m really not interested…”

“Astonishing. Do you practice that idiot act regularly or does it come naturally?” the guard snaps.

And then she takes off her helmet, thick brown hair cascading freely down her back. The face that now pins Sokka into place is tan and hard-cut, with a prominent chin, a jawline so pronounced it looks almost masculine and a nose that crooks slightly to the side, as though it’s been broken at least once. With thick, pointed eyebrows and two wrinkles shooting down the middle of the forehead, it is also a face that is very, very suited to frowning, which Sokka discovers first-hand the moment the mysterious woman locks her pale grey eyes with his again.

“Let’s clear some things up here,” she hisses, eyes narrowing even further, which causes the skin on their corners to crinkle formidably. “I know you’re not a guard. I know you’re working with Prince Zuko. I know you’re planning an escape.” She leans back, straightening to tower at least a full head over Sokka, and hefts the helmet under her right arm. “And I’m going to help you.”

Sokka’s thoughts, which have been flying a mile a minute the moment she started talking, suddenly all crash into a wall in a spectacular heap of half-baked lies and tangled denials. The guard doesn’t give him any time to reel, though. She plows on, eyes hard and voice tight but steady.

“I spoke to Suki,” she says. “She told me you’re her friend. You want to get her out?”

Sokka blinks, assesses his chances. “Y-yes?”

She nods. “Good. In that case I’ll help get all three of you out of here. Do you have a plan?”

Sokka gulps in a deep breath, leaning against the door to the broom closet. The woman is waiting for him to speak, and she’s not raising an alarm yet, and yeah, she might very well be a spy, but…

_Go with it, Sokka. Just go with it. There’s nothing you can do to stop the current when you’re dunked right in the water, so you might as well swim along until you see the shore._

“The cooler,” Sokka whispers, locking his knees into place and pulling himself into decisiveness. “I was thinking, well, they’re completely insulated, and there’s got to be a good launching point somewhere on the beach, and the current goes –“

She is shaking her head even before he’s done, disapproval pinching her face into even tighter lines that make her look at least five years older than she probably is. Sokka’s words wilt sadly into thin air, taking what little momentum he’s managed to gather away with them. 

“You _could_ sail across the lake in a cooler,” she muses skeptically, “but however were you planning to unbolt it and carry it down to the beach? It’s impossible. It’s a giant lump of metal. It is not possible to carry around a giant lump of metal without being seen. Besides, supposing you do manage that somehow, how are you planning to get through to the other side of the volcano? Those are not the kind of walls you can just scale. Believe me, people tried. Not to mention they’d spot you from the watchtower once you reach a certain distance, blind spot or not.” 

“The steam –“ Sokka tries, because ouch, that stings, but he only gets flattened even more for his trouble. 

“The steam won’t conceal a great big lump of metal floating on an empty lake where there wasn’t supposed to be one,” the guard points out, sparing no fucks for the tatters of Sokka’s confidence. 

Sokka’s breath rushes out of him in a painful lurch as he closes his eyes. 

Okay. Okay.

“So what do you suggest?” he asks once he’s sure he can speak without a tremble in his voice. 

“I’ve got nothing yet,” the guard confesses, her face softening by a few cracks. “But I’ll keep thinking. So will you. And in the meantime, we keep Suki and the prince safe.”

Sokka nods, clenching his jaw. 

More cracks smoothen on the guard’s face, until she is almost – almost – smiling. “Okay. We will leave now, and you’ll keep doing your best to pass for a new guard, and if we’re lucky no one else will catch on before it’s time. Try not to talk to either of them too often or it will be suspicious.”

She moves as if to reach past him to the door, and that’s when Sokka finally catches up to some of what’s just passed. “Wait,” he calls before she can push the door open. “Who are you?”

She does smile, then, or maybe that’s just the shadows moving across her face. “The name’s Lien. I’m the one Suki’s dumped you for. Sorry.”

She does brush past him, then, and darts out with grace that shouldn’t be possible for someone sneaking out of a broom closet; and the way she smirks at him on the way shows Sokka exactly how very sorry she is not.

 

***

 

By the end of the day Sokka is just about ready to crawl out of his own skin and then float away as a spirit out the nearest ventilation duct. His nerves, if anyone could see them, would probably resemble the tattered, frayed ends of a sleeve that was caught on fire, and that’s on top of a headache that’s been building behind his temple slowly but surely and which now drums away right above his left eye, all settled in and cozy as you please. He’s managed to avoid interaction with the other guards as much as possible, but at some point his stomach absolutely demanded that Sokka feed it, so that resulted in what had to be the least comfortable meal in Sokka’s life. 

It didn’t help that the food was way too spicy for human consumption, as if the prison cook labored under the assumption that they were all dragons that needed to stoke their fire. 

As he ate, he resolved to ask Zuko whether firebenders needed spicy food to bend. If that’s the case, then they could just sabotage their spice supplies and be done with the whole war in a jiffy.

All in all, by the end of the day Sokka is barely stopping himself from jumping at shadows, and all he really wants to do is find the place where new guys are allowed some shut-eye and forget where he is for at least a couple precious hours.

Instead, he finds himself sneaking into Zuko’s cell and plopping down on the hard floor by the cot, hugging his knees and pressing the pounding spot in his head against the overheated skin of his forearm.

“That bad, huh,” Zuko whispers in the darkness of the cell.

Sokka lets out a tired breath that speaks for him. He closes his eyes and presses the aching spot even harder. “I will find a way to get us out,” he promises quietly. “I will. It’s just taking a little longer than I thought.”

“The others will probably worry about us.”

“Yeah.” Sokka sighs. “They will.” Fuck, he really didn’t need to be reminded of that. The image of Katara’s face, taut with concern, lances straight through him, and he has to physically shake his head to dislodge it. 

And then a hand – warm, but not unpleasant, unlike the debilitating heat from the lake – gently brushes against the nape of his neck. Fingers skim over skin uncertainly, like they’re afraid Sokka might bolt at the slightest touch… which isn’t that far off the mark, the way he’s been wound up all day. Still, he knows it’s Zuko, and he’s as unlikely to turn down a touch from him as he is to start eating seaslugs. He sits there and allows the hand, now emboldened, to touch his skin with more pressure, sending waves of inner heat to swipe over his body.

“At least they still haven’t caught you,” Zuko whispers. “That’s something.”

The fingers now press against the back of his neck in something resembling a rhythm. Sokka allows his muscles, one by one, to relax, even as a tender thing inside him glitters restlessly. “Yeah,” he murmurs, eyes closed. “And I’ll make sure it stays that way. Only…”

“Yeah?”

“My girlfriend dumped me.”

There. It’s out. Sokka breathes, shifting a little on the floor and listening to the silence of a prison that’s not really asleep, but which is doing a pretty fine job of pretending. He can hear muffled snoring from one of the neighboring cells and the steady footsteps of a guard patrolling the corridors outside, but other than that, all is still.

Which is why, when he hears the gentle whisper of fabric, it sounds much louder than it really is. Next thing he knows, there is warm pressure digging into his shoulder as Zuko sits down on the floor next to him. 

He’s just as warm as his hand was. Eyes drifting closed, Sokka lets himself sag against him, just a little bit, and takes what comfort he can while it’s offered. And only feels a little guilty. 

There’s a moment of silence. And then: 

“That… sucks, buddy.”

Sokka snorts. The sound leaps out of him all on its own, without any consultation with the brain, and some of the pounding exhaustion flies out of him right along with it to evaporate into the heat of the cell. 

“Okay, were you actually trying to be funny or was that an accident?” His body leans a little more into the solid warmth to his left. “Because normally your jokes suck. No offense.”

He can feel Zuko shrug against him, and though he can’t quite see his face, he can hear the almost-smile in his voice. “I’ve been known to have my moments.” And then, after a moment of silence, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Sokka shifts uncomfortably on the floor. “I think I have to whether I want to or not,” he mumbles, remembering the stern-faced guard lady in the broom closet. “Apparently Suki is now involved with a guard. We had a talk earlier today. The guard wants to help us escape.”

It’s easier to say it all than he expected it would be, but the words still drop down into his stomach like little icicles, one by one. It’s absurd to feel cold in the heatbox that is the Boiling Rock, but for a moment, Sokka does anyway, and the warmth of Zuko’s body pressed to his side provides distraction that, for once, he welcomes.

“Oh.” Zuko leans back against the cot, or so Sokka guesses from the way his muscles move. “Well, that’s… Sorry, Sokka, I have no idea what to say.”

Sokka smiles humorlessly into the darkness. “You and me both.” He sighs, and then chooses to put into words what’s been nagging at the back of his mind for the better part of the evening. “I never saw it coming. It just – bam, out of nowhere. And you know what that means? That I really don’t know Suki at all.” He shifts, feels Zuko press against him a bit more. Closes his eyes again. “I thought I did, but… yeah, no. I guess you can’t really _know_ someone after only a few days of… uh, knowing them.”

“A few days?”

“Yeah. I know what you’re gonna say – that’s not exactly a basis for a lasting relationship, right?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Well, it’s true.” Sokka lets his fingers fiddle against one another as the headache picks up again. “It sucks, but it’s true. I was an idiot.”

For a moment, there is silence, and then Zuko sighs. “I don’t think you’re an idiot to hope for something when you find it,” he whispers. “We’re at war. Connections are… quicker. Easier to make. It’s not a stupid thing to let yourself become attached to someone.”

This draws Sokka’s lips into a ghost of a smile. “Maybe,” he muses. “But it’s not like we made any promises. I guess I just… assumed, and, well, shit happens. It’s not like we can control any of it. Maybe the connection she made with that guard was stronger.”

Zuko hums vaguely. Sokka wants to just give in and rest his head on his shoulder completely – he’s so drained all of a sudden – but something keeps him upright. Perhaps there is still a little bit of dignity in him to cling to, after all. 

He kinda wishes there wasn’t. And feels guilty for not feeling guilty at all.

“So, what’s he like?” Zuko prods after yet another spell of silence. “The guard.”

Ha. “Here’s the surprising part,” Sokka says darkly. “It’s a woman. I didn’t even know Suki well enough to predict this could happen, and now I got dumped for a cranky guard lady.”

“A cranky guard lady,” Zuko echoes. “Huh.”

Sokka turns his head to look at him, then – or at least at the deeper array of shadows that has to be Zuko – because of that _Huh_. It’s a strange _Huh_. It’s the kind of _Huh_ that’s laced with double meaning much like master Piandao’s aphorisms, only – well, only more Zuko. Anyway, it definitely catches Sokka’s attention, and for a flash of a second he thinks back to pale stomach muscles moving in the storage room, to his own inconvenient reactions, to the warmth of Zuko’s breath on his jaw.

And, for a second, he wonders.

“You don’t sound very shocked,” he prompts quietly.

He can feel Zuko shrugging against him again. “It sucks she dumped you,” he says quietly, “but no, I’m not shocked. I mean, not that you’re easy to dump!” He amends immediately, and it’s so hilariously easy to imagine his panicked expression that, for a moment, Sokka smiles. “I mean, the woman part. That’s not really all that shocking.”

Sokka takes a moment to think about it, stupid hope taking wing in his gut entirely without his permission. “You met a lot of girls having girlfriends, then? Or boys having boyfriends?”

“I, uh.”

Okay, now _that Uh_ is even more interesting. Sokka prods Zuko with his elbow, all thoughts of Suki temporarily abandoned in the face of this new, tremendous development, because _holy shit_. “Zuko? Did _you_ have a boyfriend?”

“I had – um.” Zuko falters, and Sokka would probably cut his ponytail off and gift-wrap it for just enough light to see his face by. “There was this guy, back on my ship. I wouldn’t call him a boyfriend, but we, uh… Did things.”

Sokka blinks. “Did things.”

“Yeah. You know… things.”

Holy shit. _Holy shit_. “Holy shit,” Sokka whispers. “You _slept_ with a _guy?!_ ”

Zuko groans. The sound comes out muffled, as if he’s pressing hands into his face. Sokka would hazard a pretty good guess that that’s actually the case. 

“Don’t tell the others,” Zuko pleads quietly. “I don’t want things to be any weirder than they already are.”

“I make no promises,” Sokka states firmly, and means it. “Tell me more.”

“What, about sex with a man?”

“Okay, maybe not,” Sokka concedes, though that shameful part of him that had him avoiding shirtless firebending practice immediately imagines Zuko in the embrace of a faceless older man, and promptly does a cartwheel that has his head spinning.

Because the image is kind of – okay, very – hot. And suddenly there’s nothing Sokka can do about the heat pooling in his stomach and spilling into his face. _Holy shit_. 

“He was my lieutenant,” Zuko explains quietly after a moment. “He was way older than me, but… well, we were both lonely and, yeah. Things happened.” His voice drops even lower when he adds, “I don’t know if he survived the Siege of the North.”

“Oh.” The mention of the Siege sobers Sokka up more effectively than a wet rag slapping his face, and he takes a moment to ponder the fact that both he and Zuko lost someone they cared about in it. Slowly, another piece of his old image of Prince Zuko detaches itself to form a new picture, one that has been in the making ever since the day Zuko joined them. 

He sort of wants to kiss this new Zuko now. The thought is definitely not very helpful.

“So you… what, like both guys and girls?” he asks eventually, nervously, apparently jolting Zuko out of some pretty deep contemplation because the body next to him jumps a little at the sound of his voice. 

“I guess so?” Zuko’s voice sounds thoughtful. “I mean, I really did like Mai, but there was Jee and… well, there was that other guy that I met on the ferry to Ba Sing Se and we sort of hooked up for one night too, but in Ba Sing Se there was that girl, Jin, and –“

“Ok _aaaaay_ , hold up, Prince Heartbreaker!” Sokka nearly sputters, and is really grateful that the darkness hides his face from general view. “Just how many people have you hooked up with?!”

Zuko chuckles. He actually _chuckles_ , the bastard, as though Sokka’s discomfiture is somehow amusing, and then he says, “Three, I guess. We didn’t go anywhere beyond a kiss with Jin.”

Which implies that he has gone way beyond a kiss with the other three, while all Sokka has to his name are two kisses with Suki and one with – well, he’s not going to think about that. 

This… will take some getting used to.

“You do realize I’m gonna pester you for details about each and every one of those hookups now, right?” Sokka says, trying to pretend that the entire conversation doesn’t make more of that uncomfortable heat pool in the pit of his stomach, to say nothing of the volcano-sized blow to his manly pride. “It’s not like we have anything better to do while we’re stuck here,” he adds in an undertone. “Oh, and stay away from my sister, you floozy.”

Zuko snorts. “Not gonna be a problem,” he counters wryly. “I doubt she’s gonna want to come anywhere near me except when she’s threatening to kill me again.”

“Katara did that?”

“Oh yeah. You have one scary sister.”

Sokka elbows him in the ribs. “You’re one to talk.” 

Zuko shifts, hunching in on himself. “Yeah, I guess Azula sort of takes the cake, doesn’t she. Still. Katara’s plenty scary on her own. But it’s not like I don’t deserve it, so…” His voice trails off, like a wisp of smoke dissolving slowly into the atmosphere. 

It only takes Sokka about two seconds’ hesitation before he raises his arm and rests his hand on Zuko’s warm, warm shoulder, then squeezes it through the threadbare linen of the prison rags. He lets it stay there. All things considered, he hopes that’s comfort enough, for now. 

And maybe it is, because Zuko breathes out deeply; Sokka can feel the muscles under his palm unwind with the swoosh of air. The sensation, a bit strange but mostly kind of nice, carries over to Sokka as though the touch connects their nervous systems together, and he finds himself unwinding too, just enough to feel how tense he’d been before. 

“We should get some sleep,” he suggests quietly, before he really gives in to the temptation and just slumps against Zuko entirely. “I sneaked a look at the schedules and you’re all supposed to be up at the buttcrack of dawn. It looks like we could be here a while so might as well rest while we can.”

“Yeah. Right.” There’s a sudden sizzle of air, as though it’s been splintered in one place, and then the cell is awash with moving shadows that ribbon out of Zuko’s open palm, where a small flame is snuggly nestled.

It looks a little bit like a turtleduckling, and Sokka smiles, oddly charmed by the memory. Another piece of the new Zuko picture falls into place with a click, and Sokka wonders if the swell in his heart is from the warmth of the flame or something else entirely. 

Zuko’s face, a mosaic of light and shadow and gnarled scar tissue, looks a bit like the flame now, equally raw, equally unguarded and shifting, and equally clear. He looks at Sokka, and Sokka finds himself unable to look away for just a moment because – well, the thing about fire is, it can draw one’s eyes all too easily, especially in the dark. There’s something magnetic about moving flames, and now the same magnetic _thing_ is reflected in Zuko’s eyes, and the vulnerability in them is something Sokka is entirely unprepared for.

Nor is he prepared for the odd jolt in his stomach, as though the floor’s turned into a slide without them noticing. 

“Okay, well, I’ll be going now,” he says quickly, getting to his feet. “Good talk. Thanks, Zuko.”

“Be careful,” Zuko whispers after him. “Don’t get caught.”

“Yeah. See ya tomorrow, Jerkbender.”

Zuko doesn’t reply; Sokka can see him climbing back onto his hard cot when he opens the door to slid out, and the flame dies before he can close it back again.

He makes his way back to the guard dormitories, and only halfway there does he realize that he hadn’t thought about Suki for a good twenty minutes. 

 

***

 

The next day, just as he predicted, starts early enough for the hour to still be considered late. The newbie dormitory is shaken awake by a shrill bell, waved around gleefully by the same guard that tossed the Chit Sang guy to the cooler yesterday, and then he yells at them to get up; to get dressed; to start running around the courtyard; to do push-ups and sit-ups and all manner of torture masquerading as exercise. In fact, yelling seems to be his primary mode of operating, and he sure has a set of lungs strong enough to go with the lifestyle. By the time Sokka slumps on the bench in the canteen, he has a sneaking suspicion his eardrums will never be the same.

Someone slides on the bench opposite him, and he doesn’t have to look up to know who it is.

“Morning,” Lien chirps, more energetic than any sane person has a right to be at this hour. “Enjoyed your workout?”

“Is this normal here?” Sokka leans in over his tray of unidentified grub to whisper at her. 

She shrugs, lifting the spoon with the same brownish grub to her lips. “Of course. Guards are expected to exercise regularly and stay fit. You didn’t expect to be exempted from that, did you?”

Sokka makes a face and opts to focus on his breakfast instead. 

The rest of the day is filled with activity. The older guards seem to have no qualms at all about exploiting the newbies and giving them the shoddiest jobs – or close to that. The nastiest, most mundane stuff, like mopping the floors and scrubbing the toilets, is done by the prisoners. Luckily, Sokka is relegated to paperwork duty for the better part of the afternoon, and he takes the opportunity to memorize every little scrap of information that could possibly come in handy at some point. 

One document especially catches his eye – the list of incoming prisoners for the next week.

“War prisoners,” he mouths, scanning the list for more details. And then his heart slams against the side of his throat when he reads the name: _Chief Hakoda, Southern Water Tribe_. 

He swallows, trying to calm the rapid pulse of his heart drumming faster than Aang chattering high on whatever disgusting blob General Fong made him try, and turns to the older guard who is snoozing in her chair by the far wall. “Those are some exciting prisoners, huh,” he says, jolting her out of her nap. 

“What? Oh, that, yeah.” She rubs her eyes and straightens in the chair. “Those guys are due in next week. They were supposed to arrive earlier, but we didn’t have the space. We need to get some people out first.”

Sokka is wise enough not to ask how exactly they’re gonna get people out. Over the course of the afternoon he _has_ sorted through some release papers, but there have also been a number of execution orders, and it’s better not to put the faces to the names. Yes, the people sentenced to death have all been convicted of murder – many of them of multiple murders – but after everything he’s seen of the country he has no delusions about the quality of the Fire Nation justice system. 

He only hopes they can get out before Zuko’s name appears on one of these.

He looks at Dad’s name again, scans the page for more Water Tribe prisoners and, finding none, continues working with double the pace with hands that are just a breath away from shaking. His Dad is due to arrive here next week and he can’t wait to tell Zuko, because now doubt is trying to suck at him like a heart leech. 

Should they try and escape as soon as possible anyway, or should they wait…?

He only manages to get glimpses of Zuko, though, and in public too, making conversation impossible; and whenever he plans to steal a moment to sneak into his cell during lockdown, one of the senior guards inevitably finds him and gives him a new job to do. At dinner he tries to avoid Lien, not wanting to confide in her unless he absolutely has to – he isn’t all that sure he can look at her without feeling nauseous. The same goes for Suki, and whenever he spots _her_ – in the yard, in the corridors, in the indoor common areas mopping the floors along with Zuko – he has to fight a losing battle with himself not to look away.

He thinks that is pain, but, in the end, it’s nothing like when Yue died. Or Mom. Or when they nearly lost Aang. Or when they realized that the invasion was really going to fail. He reminds himself of that as he goes through the day, and thinks that, all in all, it’s a kind of pain that he’ll be able to deal with. In time. Perspective is the thing. Perspective, and after all, he meant what he told Zuko the night before. He had only spent – what, three, four days with Suki? It’s not like he has any claim, other than those few precious days. It’s not like they made vows. It’s not like she owes him anything, and it’s not like they really know one another enough to expect commitment. And she’s still alive. Yes, Sokka is hurt – vows or no, their parting kiss did mean _something_ – but if it’s really for the reasons he thought at first is becoming… unclear.

Maybe it’s mostly his pride that’s suffering. For all that he missed Suki, he can’t deny that there is some truth in that because, after all, his pride _has_ taken more blows than he can count. Anyway, he forces himself to respect Suki’s decision and swallow it like a man, and hope that in time, the claws closing around his heart with each thought of her will eventually let go. 

And they do. Much sooner than he could reasonably expect. But that is only so other, much sharper claws can take their place and squeeze all air out of him.

 

***

 

It happens late in the evening, and, as is usually the case with horrible things, it hits him when he least expects it. Sokka has just been relieved from his cooler guarding duty and is jogging to Zuko’s cell to get some time alone before lights out when he spots three guards posted outside the very door he wants to get through. They are looking ahead, all three of them with set, grim faces, hands crossed behind their straight backs. All three of them look like thugs who found themselves on the right side of prison bars through chance alone. All three of them are men. 

Sokka stops abruptly, momentum pushing him to slide a little on the metal floor as he does. His heart constricts into inactivity for a moment, frosting all over with dread. One of the men, the one standing to the left, glances at him with disinterest. 

“What are you doing here, newbie?” he murmurs, not unkindly. “Shoo.”

Sokka swallows. “I was just going to check up on our newest prisoner,” he says and, by some small mercy of the Spirits, his voice stays firm. “Heard he’s, you know,” he leans in and lowers his voice, “the prince.”

The guard in the middle chuckles. The sound is about as reassuring as if it came from Princess Azula herself. “Not much of a prince at the moment, I bet,” he says over a smirk. “The Warden’s in there. _Interrogating_ him.”

The frost around Sokka’s heart breaks into a thousand pieces, and the damn thing is beating again all right – only now it’s a frantic, scattered beat that’s not even a rhythm but a continuous thrum of _Nonononono_. And then, as if on cue, the silence is shattered by the sound of something – or someone – crashing to the floor inside the cell, and Zuko’s muffled groan. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK…!

“Get away from here if you know what’s good for you,” the guard to the left says. “It’s gonna take a while.”

Sokka swallows. “But – “

“Look, I know you’re new around here and you’re not used to the way things are done,” says the guard, glancing at him with something resembling sympathy, which only makes Sokka want to retch. “It’s okay. You’ll get used to it. But it’s better if you don’t listen if you can help it.”

“No!” Zuko’s voice thunders from the cell before Sokka can even string together a reply. “Fuck off! Get the fuck off of me – !”

“What…” Sokka takes a step closer, throat blocked with what feels like his own guts wanting to get out. “What is happening in there?”

“I told you,” snaps the guard in the middle. “Interrogation. Now get your scrawny ass out of here before you get yourself in trouble.”

In the cell, Zuko keeps swearing, and at some really impressive sailor-levels too which is all the more shocking because up until now Sokka had no idea the guy even knew all those words. His voice is rising in pitch, volume and desperation. There are grunts going with it now, different voices, and someone groaning, and cursing along, only more softly, out of breath. More thuds escape, and the sickening crack of a foot connecting with flesh. And then – 

A cry. High, blood-curling and torn, like a glass shard slammed into a throat, and horribly, unmistakably Zuko’s. Sokka doesn’t know what’s worse – the sound itself, or the silence that drops on them like an anvil after it’s abruptly cut off. 

He looks at the door, at the three men guarding it, and makes up his mind.

With one last look, he turns tail and runs for help with the echo of that final cry chasing him out.

He finds Lien in the courtyard, keeping a sharp eye on the group of prisoners sweeping the gravel. She cuts an intimidating figure, stern and poised with her arms crossed behind her back and her chin held high, but when she spots Sokka running towards her, a flicker of concern touches her eyes before she sweeps it under the mask of professionalism.

“Don’t run,” she barks at Sokka out of the corner of her mouth. “That makes you look suspicious. Stride, or march like you’re on an important business, but never run. Now, what is it?”

It takes Sokka a couple of tries before he can let out words instead of wheezes, and even when he does all he can do is pant _Zuko_ and _The Warden_ and _Help_. His ears brim with the sounds of Zuko in pain, and the contents of his breakfast do their very best to climb out of him in tatters. He looks up at Lien, but even her face blurs a little; fuck, just running here took too long. 

Lien cusses under her breath, then grabs Sokka by the crook of his elbow and drags him into the shadow by one of the prison walls. “What happened?” she demands roughly.

A part of Sokka is grateful for the no-nonsense treatment. He needs the sharpness of the focus it brings. “The Warden is in Zuko’s cell,” he breathes out, words finally falling into place. “He’s torturing him. I heard them. What can I do?!”

“Shit,” Lien hisses. Then, she grabs Sokka by the arms and shakes him, hard. “There’s nothing you _can_ do,” she urges. “You hear me? Not until he’s done. You’re gonna wait it out, keep quiet and lie low, and when the cell is empty you’re gonna go in there and help the prince as much as you can. Bring medical supplies. If he’s interrogating the prince that means he won’t kill him, but Prince Zuko _will_ need your help. I’ll try and stop by too. But for now, you’re just gonna have to be strong and –“

“No.” Sokka can feel his face harden, just as he senses that dark thing stirring in the pit of his gut and sniffing blood. “No. There’s got to be something –“

“Do you want to get caught? Do you _want_ to end up in a cell too? Because that’s exactly what will happen if you do anything to interrupt the Warden!”

Sokka shakes his head. He can’t accept that. Not when visions of what the Warden might be doing to his new friend are flashing in front of his eyes like afterimages of a candle flame that’s been snuffed out too quickly. He is about to tell her as much and dash right back in there, and think of something – he _will_ think of something, no matter what she says – when suddenly Lien groans and grabs him by the elbow again. 

“Come on,” she snaps. “We’re going to do our best.”

Sokka grits his teeth and follows her. The dark thing inside of him not only smells blood in the air now, it _longs_ for it, and he doesn’t even bother to restrain it this time. 

But Lien’s firm stride doesn’t carry them back to Zuko’s cell immediately. Instead, she leads Sokka to the offices, barks at the only person there – a harassed-looking mouse of a man – to scram and get her a sandwich, and then she shuts them inside and grabs the first blank sheet of paper she sees. 

“Here.” She tosses the paper at Sokka. “Write down that Assistant Warden Kai requires the Warden’s signature urgently on a confidential document to be forwarded to Fire Lord Ozai immediately. Well, don’t just stand there, get writing!”

Sokka snaps out of his initial puzzlement and lets his hand fly across the page, composing the message in a hurried scrawl as quickly as he can without dotting the paper with inkblots. His hand is shaking, but the resulting missile is still readable, and Lien snatches it without a word and dashes out of the office, Sokka trailing after her.

“We need an excuse to interrupt him,” she explains in a low voice that is already becoming familiar. “We can’t just barge in.”

Sokka only nods. Every step he takes serves to turn his stomach into a cold block of lead, and keeping a clear head is taking up most of his energy. He’s not going to expel any more of it on unnecessary chatter when Zuko needs him. 

If he had been less preoccupied, he might have spared a sympathetic thought for the poor Assistant Warden on account of the inevitable walloping the bastard’s gonna get when the Warden realizes it was all a hoax. But right now, his heart is too heavy with Zuko’s scream to think about any other firebenders. The dark thing is clawing at him, scraping its way out of the pit that’s been its dwelling place, and Sokka isn’t all that sure he can put a muzzle on it this time. 

“Wait here,” Lien instructs him when they march into the corridor leading to Zuko’s cell. “Hide. Wait for my signal. Don’t let yourself be seen lurking around here, understood?”

She doesn’t wait for confirmation but strides on, each step clicking with steely assurance. Sokka is once again resigned to plaster his back against the wall. The shadows aren’t nearly cool enough to soothe the flush of his face, but he turns, takes off his helmet and presses his forehead against it anyway. His harassed breath measures out the time – one, two, three – as he listens to the events unfolding farther down the corridor.

Lien’s calm, strident voice. The gruff answer. The hollow bang against metal, once, twice, three times, and – Sokka’s heart leaps – the whine of opening doors. He holds very still, breath catching on the exhale, as the cadence of voices changes and is joined by the low, menacing voice of the Warden. And then –

Footsteps. 

Many, many footsteps. Sokka flattens himself against the wall with such dedication that just a few inches and he would diffuse his very self into the metal if he could, and watches from his shadow as the Warden-led procession of guards – six of them, not three, and Sokka doesn’t even want to begin to think what it means – pass him in a march, with Lien bringing up the rear. Passing the nook containing Sokka, she lets the index finger of her left hand sprout a flame – a tiny thing, gone the very next instant – and Sokka doesn’t need any more encouragement.

As soon as they are out of range he is _out_ , nearly tripping over his own feet in his hurry to make sure Zuko is still in one piece. Metal whines again as he pulls it open and then closed again, and he darts to the cot, and then pauses just as quickly.

“No,” someone whispers, and it’s difficult to realize it’s him. “Oh no, Zuko.”

One golden eye flickers over to him, then closes. Zuko hangs his head. He isn’t crying, but it would have been so much easier if he was.

Because it’s worse. It’s way, way worse than what Sokka could have imagined, because – he realizes that now – _he_ doesn’t have the twisted mind of a total, unscrupulous bastard. Sokka takes in the sight of Zuko kneeling on the floor by the cot with his prison pants yanked down to his knees and blood smeared across his pale thighs, and completes the journey to the cot in slow steps that feel a bit like he’s wading through a swamp. His eyes dart down and up and down again as he kneels beside Zuko; he can’t look him in the eye now, but then again, the sight down there isn’t much better.

The dark thing inside of Sokka howls, and then howls louder when it hears the tremble in Zuko’s whisper.

“They… He… I couldn’t…”

For a moment – just a moment – Sokka allows his eyes to squeeze closed. The implications of what has happened are only beginning to set in, but already he feels as though he’s been impaled on one of Katara’s ice spikes, and he needs this split second if only to stop himself screaming while the ice vines into his muscles. He breathes in, then out, the dark thing growing just a little in the pit of his stomach, and then he forces himself to look at what little he can see of Zuko’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, words dragging over the roof of his mouth like splinters. “I should have just gone in the moment I knew something was up. I wasted time.”

Zuko breathes out again, and this time even the air trembles dangerously. “You couldn’t,” he forces out thickly through the curtain of hair that looks like someone’s been pulling on it. He spies the purpling of a bruise glaring at him through Zuko’s fringe, and has to fight not to look way. “They would have – “

“No. I should have done more. But that doesn’t matter now,” Sokka decides, firmly putting a lid on the dark thing and sending it back to wait for further instructions, with the promise of blood very soon. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“How –“

Sokka grits his teeth, wetness pooling in his eyes without his permission. _Fuck_.

“I’ll just go and get – stuff. You stay right here. I’ll be back before you know it, okay?” It only takes him a heartbeat of hesitation, and then he puts a hand on the top of Zuko’s head and strokes it gently. “I promise I’ll be back. And I’ll take care of you.” 

He swallows, but the following words manage to escape anyway: “And I’ll kill that bastard.”

He pretends that what he does is not running away, but he can’t even convince himself – not when Zuko’s silence all but chases him out. As soon as the barrier of metal door stands between him and the horrors inside, Sokka pauses for breath and quickly wipes the hot, angry tears out of his burning eyes. As much as he’d like to just stand there and howl all the rage out until there’s nothing left, he can’t. There’s no time for it. Zuko needs help, and he needs it now. Hoping that throwing himself into doing _something_ will numb at least some of the hurt, Sokka runs to where he remembers the medical supplies storage is, and when one guard tries to stop him he only snaps, “Warden’s orders,” and keeps on running.

He only stops for breath once he’s actually looking at the stacks of supplies. Towels are easy enough to locate and those he snatches without thinking, but then he is forced to pause and actually consider, which only makes the knots in his stomach tighten impossibly and twist for good measure. How does one even begin to care for someone who’s been – 

He shakes his head, but the sight of Zuko kneeling in a crumpled heap on the floor, bruised and bloodied, refuses to budge. Instead, it’s s leeched firmly onto the part of his brain that’s wired to his eyes, and is all he can see when he tries to force himself to _focus, dammit, focus!_

Katara would know, he thinks distractedly. Katara would know how to help. And he’s – he’s useless.

In the end, he grabs at a bottle of what looks like balm, tucks it into the belt of the uniform and bolts it out of there with the towels slung over his forearm. He has just enough presence of mind to go and collect water on the way, and he hauls the lot to Zuko’s cell as quickly as he can without spilling everything to the floor. Guards and prisoners alike look on, but no one tries to stop him. Evidently new guy antics are an amusing diversion, and Sokka lets that little observation slip down as a snack for the dark thing pawing impatiently at his heart. There will be time to make them pay. For now…

For now, he has a friend to help. 

Zuko is still alone when he gets back, thank fuck. Sokka carefully sets the bucket of water down by the cot, swallowing dry when he sees the little tight ball of firebender curled up on it. At least it’s an improvement over the floor, he supposes. Zuko has pulled his pants back up, and dammit, Sokka will have to find a way to get him to remove them again. He already hates himself for it.

“Hey.” He perches on the very edge of the cot, reaches out to touch Zuko’s shoulder and thinks better of it just in time. “Zuko, can I touch you?” he asks over what feels like a nail in his throat and heart alike.

Zuko doesn’t exactly say yes. Instead, he uncurls from his tight tangle just enough so one eye can glance at Sokka, dull and shot with red, and there is just enough of a nod in there to allow Sokka to put a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“I got some water,” he whispers. “And towels. So you can get cleaned up.” He gulps, tries to unstick the words from where they crowd at the back of his throat. “Do you want me to help you, or do you want – “

“He didn’t finish,” Zuko whispers. His voice sounds both wet and dry like desert sand all at the same time, and there’s a dark edge there that he either doesn’t notice or bother to conceal. “He didn’t get to.”

Sokka’s body tenses without his say-so, but he doesn’t try and pretend he doesn’t know what Zuko’s talking about. “I should have interrupted sooner,” he repeats before he can stop it from slipping out.

The single golden eye he can see fixes on the wall. “He wanted to humiliate me. Make me talk. I didn’t say anything and he. Didn’t get to finish. He didn’t get to mark me. So. At least there’s that.”

And then Zuko lets out a dark, broken sound caught between a bitter chuckle and a sob. It might have just as well been a glass shard – it makes Sokka’s ears ache just the same. The hand resting on Zuko’s shoulder presses slightly closer, seeking out the warmth of fire under the rough, threadbare fabric and soft skin; but the warmth is only barely there, a spooked flutter of a pulse instead of a steady beat, and Sokka has to blink furiously to chase the thick tears of fury away again. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “There’s that.”

The bastard didn’t get leave his filthy mark on Zuko, and Sokka can appreciate the bitter satisfaction in that even as everything else about it makes the dark thing inside him _roar_. He presses on Zuko’s shoulder some more, fingers twisting in the fabric that feels entirely too coarse to be brushing Zuko’s skin, and Sokka doesn’t know where the thought even comes from but he supposes it doesn’t matter; not when it hardens into another lump of coal to stoke his simmering rage. 

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asks quietly, because if it’s privacy Zuko needs Sokka will damn well give it to him, no matter how much he doesn’t want to go. 

The breath Zuko releases is a heavy one, and it trembles with sobs that probably won’t make it out because he is just too damn stubborn to let them. If Sokka’s heart wasn’t bleeding already, this would have done the trick. 

Spirits, they’ve been through some really bad shit with Aang in the past, but none of it has ever been this…

Personal. 

And now it’s happened, something Sokka in his damned naivety hadn’t even considered _could_ happen, and he. Is fucking. Useless.

The wait is long, and when the answer from Zuko finally does come, it does nothing to loosen the knots in his stomach any… But then again, neither would any other answer come to think of it. It just won’t be that easy.

“Wait outside,” Zuko whispers in a voice that is just a little too flat. “I’ll clean myself up. You shouldn’t have to see this.”

“Zuko, that’s not –“

“Please.” The golden eye flickers to him for just a breath before returning to the wall.

Heavily, Sokka goes. He closes the doors behind him gingerly and stands outside the cell, glaring at everyone who looks like they’re so much as contemplating coming near, and feeling like he’s aged half a century within the hour. The gravity of what’s happened sits on his shoulders like a great big log of wood, with splinters digging their way to his heart and lodging themselves deeper every time he moves. It just – 

This was never supposed to happen. Sokka expected it would be hard – a one way ticket, he told Zuko back on the shore, and he meant it back then. He expected it might cost him his health, maybe a limb or two, even his life if it came to it, which really wasn’t that responsible or smart of him in the grand scheme of things, he’ll be the first to admit. 

But he had never, in his darkest expectations, considered – 

Spirits, he can’t even think the word. Not without his guts twisting and climbing up to his mouth in a sour tangle. The log on his shoulders gets a little heavier still, and he’s slouching against the door of the cell feeling like an old man whose cane has been taken away. 

Rape. Rape, he repeats in his mind, squeezing his eyes shut. His friend has just been raped, and now they will have to deal with it clinging to them like a very private, very personal storm, with no hopes of clear skies anytime soon. 

The dark thing inside of him wants to _kill_ , and it’s all Sokka can do to keep it leashed. It’s worse than when Ba Sing Se fell. Even worse than when Yue died, because that had been her own decision, nevermind that it was never much of a choice to begin with. But she had _made_ it, is the important thing, and now her light silvers the world every night, and anyway, there was honor in her sacrifice. It was a noble thing to do. This –

There is nothing noble about _this_. Only Zuko’s wet eyes haunted with red, and the quiet slosh of water just on the edge of hearing, and humiliation, and hurt beyond their control. 

Sokka is grateful for the helmet he has put back on his head before leaving Zuko’s cell. At least if he closes his eyes now, no one will see from a distance, and he takes advantage of that. It doesn’t stop his imagination any, but at least he doesn’t have to look at the steel floors and staircases and rows of closed cells, and he’ll take any blessings he can. 

He’s heard of sexual violence. He knows it’s a thing that happens – theoretically, somewhere out there, to someone else. This is war. He’s seen the half-bred children, neither fire nor earth nor – he swallows – water, born of the war in circumstances he acknowledged but chose not to dwell on. Hell, he even experienced the occasional pang of fear that, with all her beauty and fierceness, Katara could, should they ever fail, one day be forced to suffer through the kind of nightmare she might not even be aware of as a threat, but…

Fuck, but he should have known better, and he bleeds from the gaping hole in his heart, and wants to go back in time and make it so they’d never get here. 

The soft rap against the other side of metal startles him into jumping – he’s been too deep in his own head to notice how long he’s been standing there. Sokka takes a deep breath, tries to swallow down the cold nausea – he’s not the one who’s been hurt and he _will_ be strong for Zuko, Spirits help him – and slips into the cell.

Zuko is standing in the middle of it, fully dressed, right hand still half-raised after the knock. By the cot behind him stands the bucket, with one of the towels slung over the edge and muddying the water into a dirty brown. It’s tempting to look at it instead of into Zuko’s eyes, but Sokka doesn’t. He can do that much, if not much else. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter who made the first step, he thinks –not when he first closes his arms around his friend and not when they somehow end up curled into one another on the hard cot. Zuko is all heavy breath and tightly coiled muscle and weak, trembling fire only a wrong thought away from falling apart. His hands claw into Sokka’s shirt like they’re trying to tear holes through to the skin, which, Sokka thinks, he’d be okay with; the warm air he expels into Sokka’s collarbone feels rickety, flighty, unsteady. His eyes are firmly shut. Sokka holds him just as close as Zuko clings to him, and offers gentle strokes on the exposed nape of Zuko’s neck, brushing dirty, steam-curled strands of hair that stick there, glued with dried sweat. 

They stay like that all night, saying nothing, because there is nothing to be said; and Sokka doesn’t think either of them manage a wink of sleep before the morning bells slash through the silence, pushing them apart. 

“I’ll be back,” he breathes into the new space between their faces that wasn’t there all night, once again feeling cold air sneak between them and press itself to his skin. “As soon as I can. We’re getting out here. Soon.”

He doesn’t tell Zuko about his Dad. It might have been an issue yesterday, before all this, but it’s not anymore. They can’t afford to wait, and it’s no longer a matter of choice. He’s getting Zuko out of here, and if he has to raze the entire place to the ground to do it he bloody well _will_ , and he’ll dance on the debris afterwards.

And if he gets to see the Warden again in the meantime…

The dark thing inside him purrs expectantly. Sokka doesn’t send it back.

 

***

 

By noon he’s discovering that it’s one thing to want to come up with an escape plan, but actually _coming_ up with an escape plan is a whole other matter entirely. He’s no closer to a brilliant breakthrough by lunch time than he was leaving Zuko’s cell this morning, and it’s driving him insane.

And cranky guard girlfriends of his ex-girlfriend shooting him warning glances all through the meal? It’s definitely more than enough to put a man off his lunch, even if the man is Sokka. Still, he eats his share, even through exhaustion weighing down his every move, because he knows he needs the energy. Let it never be said he’s an impractical man. 

“How bad is it?” Lien mouths at him when, by a bizarre coincidence, Sokka ends up patrolling the yard beside her after breakfast.

Sokka can feel his mouth twisting into a painfully thin line without his permission. “Bad,” he replies out of the corner of his mouth. It’s not forbidden for guards to talk to one another, but you never know who might be listening.

“Did they use the chair?”

“What?” Sokka begins to ask, but then he shakes his head. “Nevermind, I don’t even wanna know,” he murmurs. “No, there was no chair. The Warden decided to get more… personal.”

The word comes out as spittle which Sokka can barely keep in. It won’t do to pour out his fury on the poor prisoners.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lien cringe. “Fuck,” she says succinctly, and Sokka’s face darkens.

“Exactly.”

“Well, at least he’s safe for the time being,” Lien whispers. 

Sokka follows the direction of her gaze and sighs when he spots Zuko sitting in a patch of sunlight, head tipped back, eyes closed like he’s trying to stock up on it in case he needs the fuel later. Which he very well might. Sokka aches with the need to walk up to him and just touch, seeing as it’s done some good the night before, but he stays in his spot, rooted by more than just duty. The memory of their night and Zuko’s warm, warm body tucked into his own grazes him somewhere new and vulnerable, and he swallows, looking away.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “There’s that.”

The Warden wouldn’t try to pick up where he left off here in the yard, but what about later? Sokka nearly chokes on the thought as it builds up in a sour bile. There won’t be a later. He’ll pay any price to stop it. 

“I… I think the Warden might be biding his time now,” Lien murmurs, for the first time sounding less than certain of something. Sokka glances at her. “Did he try to go into the cell again at night?”

“No.”

“He… He likes playing games,” Lien whispers. “Mind games. To break people. He’ll select someone to torture, and do his worst, and then do nothing for a few days, just letting the prisoner think about it, and wait, and stew, and wonder if today will be the day... it can go on for weeks. Then he’ll strike, usually after the prisoner starts to think he won’t.”

Sokka’s dark thing growls threateningly as he swallows. “You think that’s what he’s doing with Zuko?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” His fists tighten behind his back to the point of pain. “And no one around here does anything about it?”

“What do you think?” Lien snaps. “People tried. And then ended up on the wrong side of the bars, or worse. How do you think I got sent here in the first place? I didn’t like the policies in the Caldera prisons, and I was loud about it, so as punishment they relocated me here where I wouldn’t cause any trouble.

“I’ve been able to keep Suki away from this shit,” she continues in a softer voice, tilting her gaze a bit to the left, where Suki sits, also on her own and glaring at each passing male prisoner as if she’s trying to use the power of her hostile eyes to form her very own energy shield. And it’s working – the men stay well clear of her. “Not that she needed much protecting in the first place,” Lien acquiesces, and Sokka can hear the smile in her quiet voice now. “Still. Even a good fighter can’t do much when three of those brutes hold you down all at once and… yeah. As long as I’m employed here, I can look out for her. I wouldn’t be able to do that if they got rid of me.”

“That happen often?” Sokka asks. His eyes return to Zuko just as the dark thing purrs in anticipation.

“Often enough. It’s a prison. It’s got its own rules. No one will care if a few prisoners get themselves violated while they’re here.”

“That’s why you were so worried about me being in Suki’s cell?” 

“Yeah.” Some of the fog clears, and Sokka nods his grim understanding. “They seemed to have learned their lesson not to mess with her, but… I worry.”

Sokka nods again. He’s only been here two days and he worries, too. He can’t imagine what it must have been like for… For the two of them.

The thought isn’t as scalding as he thought it would be. He glances from Lien to Suki, and back to Lien, and notices the warmth in her eyes when they fall on Suki, taking years off her face. His heart does ache to see it, but… 

Perspective, he supposes. He really does not have a claim, he knows that now, and anyway, he is much too full of the hurt for Zuko to feel much of anything else right now. The stab of protectiveness over Suki is a pale candlelight next to the blaze that sets his very innards on fire when he thinks about what happened, and that’s…

He doesn’t even know.

Maybe because he can’t really look at Suki _or_ Zuko right now, or maybe because fate finally decided to intervene, his eyes go up to fall on the cable gondola which is currently moving from the edge of the volcano into the prison. Sokka traces its progress silently, noting the thickness of the cable; the speed of the gondola; the people operating it from the walls. He thinks of the Warden. 

The cogs in his brain turn, and Sokka starts planning.

 

***

 

“I don’t know,” Lien whispers at dinner. She looks thoughtful as she chews on her noodles, and Sokka waits for her judgment with a resolute grip on his chopsticks. “We’ll need to talk about it some more. Meet me up in the yard tomorrow morning and we’ll find a way to communicate it to the others.”

“Okay.” He supposes they can wait another day since the Warden doesn’t seem to show any interest in Zuko for the time being – though Sokka quietly resolves to spend every waking moment he can to ensure it stays that way. 

“Careful next time you visit the prince,” Lien advises, as if sensing his thoughts. “If they notice you spend nights out of the newbie dormitory, there might be trouble.”

Sokka takes her advice without comment, and this time, he waits until everyone falls asleep before he steals out into the silent corridors, pretending he’s on a night shift whenever anyone asks. 

They spend the night curled up against one another again, wordless, breathing in synch, and this time, he thinks Zuko manages to catch at least a few hours of sleep before he jolts them both awake with a choked scream that makes Sokka’s blood ice all over.

“He didn’t finish,” Zuko blurts out in a panicked whisper that’s still half-asleep, before he allows Sokka to tug him back down into his arms.

He notices that this time the words are laced with dread. So Zuko knows what that implies, just as the Warden expected. 

Sokka whispers promises into his ear as he tries to soothe Zuko back to sleep, and prays to the Spirits that they’ll let him keep them.

 

***

 

It would be really fucking nice, for once, if the universe got its massive space ass in gear and decided to work with him for a change instead of against him, Sokka thinks. Really super fucking nice. It can start any time, preferably somewhere between now and the next half hour so he won’t have to come up with a way to get Zuko out of the _fucking cooler_. 

Predictably, the spirits are silent, and Sokka reaches the cooler ward without their benevolent intervention, but with plenty of irritation to make up for it.

Irritation and worry, there’s no denying it. It slashed him in half and laid him bare to the elements the moment he noticed Zuko wasn’t anywhere in the cafeteria for breakfast. His stomach has been plummeting ever since, with only the barest pause when he heard that Zuko wasn’t in the cell but had gotten thrown in the cooler, ostensibly because he gave the Warden some lip. 

Which, as far as excuses go, isn’t all that unlikely. 

Anyway, the cooler is definitely an improvement over – the other thing – but Sokka remembers the way Chit Sang looked, making himself smaller so the frost wouldn’t swallow him whole. There aren’t a whole lot of ways to incapacitate a firebender, but arctic temperatures should definitely do the trick, and there’s no telling when they’ll let Zuko out…

But irritation is so much easier to handle, so he tries to hold on to that instead of the crippling fear. Irritation is a hot, hot feeling. He only hopes it’ll be hot enough for both of them.

It’s a good thing, too, because when he finally finds the right cooler and pries its stubborn maw open, the metal monster breathes so much polar air at him that he has to sneeze it out, and he fears for a moment that his helmet might have already frosted itself to his head. But then his eyes fix on the huddled form of Zuko, looking miserable in nothing but the tattered rags for protection, and he takes a deep breath and steps inside.

Zuko flinches, no doubt expecting more pain, so Sokka quickly closes the door behind him and crouches by him with a reassuring, “Hey, it’s me.” Coldness is pawing at him with a ferocity that is usually reserved for winters back home, and he pricks all over with the longing to touch Zuko, but he won’t do that without permission. Not until Zuko says it’s okay.

Which he does, more with his eyes than with his mouth when he whispers, “Sokka?” His gaze, when he looks up, is confused but bright and, for a moment, Sokka finds his world tilting a little. Because Zuko’s eyes never looked more like a mismatched pair of flames than they do now, and it’s…

His hands rest on Zuko’s bare forearms before he can stop himself, and Spirits, the skin under his fingers is _warm_. 

“I was worried about you,” Sokka forces through teeth that are beginning to chatter. “Jerk.”

His gaze is still held by Zuko’s, so he doesn’t miss the way his eyes warm up even more and gleam with something that’s bright and just a little bit damp. The sight catches something strange and raw in his throat. Suddenly he feels exposed, and it’s more than a little ridiculous, and he’s grateful for the way Zuko unfolds his arms and rests them on Sokka’s in return.

Heat. Blessed, blessed heat. Sokka lets himself melt into it, even as the cold sinks its teeth into the rest of his body. 

“They think they can get intel on Aang out of me if they keep me here,” Zuko confesses. “They haven’t done much else for now, only a few kicks. I can take it.”

Sokka is afraid to ask, but he has to, dammit. “And they haven’t…?”

“No.” Zuko’s voice is dark, and comes out as a lick of flame, which – wow. Sokka’s breath sticks to the back of his throat, so it’s a good thing Zuko doesn’t notice and keeps talking. “No, they haven’t.”

“Thank fuck for that.” It slips out quite without Sokka’s permission, but Zuko only nods. And if his eyes go a little darker, a little duller… Well, he’s not gonna be the one to say anything, but his fingers dig into Zuko’s white skin just a little bit more.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Zuko whispers, without a hitch in his breath. “Go before you catch your death.”

“I’m from the South Pole,” Sokka blurts. “This feels like home.”

But his teeth betray him again, and his body chooses this moment to start shuddering. Zuko treats him to a single raised eyebrow. “Sure it does,” he mumbles, looking infuriatingly untouched by the cold. “But you haven’t been home for a while and you don’t have your furs. Go. I’ll be fine.”

A practical – and maybe slightly selfish – part of Sokka wants to listen to him. Too bad the rest of him absolutely does not want to let Zuko out of his sight. “How are you doing that?” he asks accusingly to change the subject. “How are you… I don’t know, not an icicle?”

“Like this.” Zuko takes a deep breath in, and then lets it out, and there comes that lick of flame again, bursting out of his mouth and hissing out into steam the moment it makes contact with the freezing air. “Uncle taught me that. It’s not perfect, but it lets me… pace myself. Preserve heat. I can deal with it.”

…Or at least, that’s what Sokka thinks he just said. The last part is just a little hazy around the edges. And that’s because he’s kind of too busy fighting a sudden, painful and entirely inappropriate boner, since apparently his very unhelpful cock thinks that Zuko breathing fire out of his mouth is just the sexiest thing ever, and the rest of Sokka finds it alarmingly difficult to disagree. The imprint of heat that still shimmers on his cheeks from the flame does not help matters at all, nor does the slight curl to Zuko’s lips which makes him look strangely roguish and vulnerable all at once. 

… Fuck.

“Neat trick,” he forces weakly, glad for the weight of the helmet which falls over his heated cheeks and for the skirtguard which hides the incriminating evidence. Down, boy. This thing really does have the worst timing. Sokka coughs to cover it up, but then the gnawing cold turns it into a hiccup and he trembles from head to toe. 

So the cooler really is aptly named, and at least it’s too fucking freezing to sustain an erection for longer than a blink. He really needs all the blood he can get to keep it circulating to the important bits, and his cock, while important in and of itself, is not one of those right now. 

Zuko tilts his head to the side. “You really should go,” he suggests with a touch of concern. “You’re starting to turn blue.”

Sokka’s body helpfully shivers some more. “What about you?” he forces through teeth that seem to have some difficulty finding their basic positions against one another. “They’re just… gonna keep you here?”

“I told you, I can deal,” Zuko assures him, and chooses to heave out yet another breath of wonderful fire that is hot in more ways than one and definitely not helpful. Fuck, Sokka really wants to kiss him now. “You should – “

He pauses. Sokka finds out why a split of a heartbeat later, when he hears irregular footsteps and voices, male and female, getting closer. Damn. Now he’ll have to wait for those two to pass, which will probably amount to death by pneumonia.

Or maybe it won’t, he thinks a blink later, because, all of a sudden, _heat_. Glorious, beautiful, breathing heat, pressing against him from Zuko’s arms and legs and a rising-falling chest that he finds himself rubbing against while Zuko maneuvers him to straddle his lap without a word. Pulling Sokka with him, he shifts to the corner of the cooler and out of immediate sight, then brings up his knees so Sokka has something to rest his back against as he clings to Zuko, arms twining around his neck and legs coming up to press around his middle. 

There’s a part of him that suspects that this should make him feel weird – and, indeed, the Sokka from before Boiling Rock probably would have. The rest of him is too busy clinging to life-saving warmth to pay it any attention. His very inappropriate boner sacrificed to the cold, he has no qualms left at all about staying as close to Zuko as humanly possible with the pesky helmet and armor getting in the way. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, even as he tries to press his helmeted forehead into the bare crook of Zuko’s neck. 

“It’s okay,” Zuko whispers. His voice catches a little, just shy of a tremble. He brings his arms around Sokka again, hands painting a trail of warmth up and down his back through the shirt. “Is this helping?”

Sokka breathes out, arctic air tickling him in the nose even as the warmth from Zuko tries to barricade it out. “Yeah,” he stutters. “It helps lots.”

Zuko hums an incoherent reply and keeps rubbing Sokka’s back. Sokka vows to never say a bad thing about him ever again, and to instruct Katara to stop giving him a hard time. In fact, he might just join Aang and Toph’s Zuko is Kinda Cool Club when they get back, only it’s not helpful at all to think about his family back at the Western Air Temple when he’s stuck here and they’re probably worrying their hearts out, and he closes his eyes over a rush of tight, tight cold that comes entirely from the inside.

Carried by that rush, he suddenly pushes away far enough so he can yank the helmet off his head and cling to Zuko even more fully, damning his pride, burying his face in that warm, warm place where neck meets shoulder. The places on his body not touched by Zuko are being stabbed with ice over and over again, but it’s hard to care when he’s being flooded with a swarm of voices that hiss that it’s all his fault, and he should never have been so reckless as to go on this stupid rescue mission, and now because of him Zuko is going through a nightmare and they’re stuck here until a miracle happens, and…

One of Zuko’s hands presses into the nape of his neck. It stays there. The pressure tells Sokka that he is not the only one who somehow finds rescue in the contact, and he rubs his cheek against the side of Zuko’s jaw in acknowledgment. “I’ll understand if you don’t want me to touch you anymore,” he finds it in himself to whisper over the wet, burning catch in his throat. “It’s okay to tell me to piss off.”

Zuko expels a long breath, stuttering but warm. He takes a moment to answer. “No,” he murmurs finally, face pressing to Sokka’s neck in turn. “That actually… it’s helping. I don’t – I don’t know how to say it, but… I guess I just have to wipe him out. It’s good to have – you, touching me, instead of…”

He doesn’t finish, and the pressure on Sokka’s neck and back grows as he feels the stutter of a breath against the skin of his neck. Sokka shivers, swallows and holds on through the hot prickling at his eyes. He thinks he knows what Zuko means. Hopes he’s reading him right. 

It is the hope that ignites a spark of bravery and prompts him to brush his lips against the soft skin of Zuko’s neck in what is meant to be reassurance. But it is something else entirely that makes him do it again, and again, when Zuko only breathes deeper and doesn’t recoil. 

Lips inches from the salty smell of skin, Sokka pauses, feeling his own breath come out in a tremble. There’s no getting out of this now. He has just admitted, before himself and Zuko, that he is attracted to him, and has been for a while. His closed eyes burn with guilt, exhaustion and anticipation as he waits for judgment, and he can feel his body locking in tension muscle by muscle, and remembers Zuko talking about a man he had slept with, a boy on a ferry. He also thinks about Suki and Lien, and wonders, absently, how big his world has gotten since Aang’s dropped into it, and also that he understands some of the men in his tribe a little better now. 

Mostly, though, he understands that attraction is a very strange thing. A part of him still misses Suki’s soft touch and her big eyes, but he can’t deny anymore that another part of him has been looking at Zuko with brand new, curious eyes, and then there is another part of him that wants to scream in frustration because surely this is the very _last_ thing Zuko could possibly ask for after what he’s been through and he should just fall to his knees apologizing…

Well, it’s done now. He’s gone and kissed Zuko’s neck, and there’s no putting the wingcat back in the bag once it’s out. Sokka breathes with his eyes closed, keeps very, very still, and waits.

The pulse he can feel under Zuko’s skin is a rapid flutter. The chest pressed against him captures a breath, and holds it in. The muscles wound around him tense with the effort to cage it, trapped in immobility. For a heartbeat, the world seems to catch itself as if before a fall. Sokka’s heart tightens. Any moment now he will be pushed away. Any moment…

Zuko leans in and brushes his own lips against the side of Sokka’s neck, at that narrow strip of flesh that’s exposed over the uniform’s collar. Sokka’s heart slams against his ribcage – in relief, or maybe arousal, though it’s probably both, not that boundaries matter anymore. His skin is breaking out in a fresh coating of gooseflesh, coaxed out by the light brush of Zuko’s lips patterning it in moving drops of heat, and the gooseflesh pops inward to break out on his veins, too – suddenly he feels rickety, unstable, like he’s balancing on a fallen trunk that rolls this way and that. His grip on Zuko’s body tightens in response, body trying to ground him while his own lips seek out the shuddering pulse in the pale neck that now stretches out in a tentative offering. 

Even now, when he is gifting short, dry kisses and receiving ones in response that bead warmth just on the underside of his skin, he’s not sure how to name what’s happening. A fluttery thrill lights up his body in waves from the stomach and out, and that alone is familiar enough – he’s had this with Suki, then with Yue, and then with Suki again, that feeling of spring bursting in bloom in the pit of his stomach, the tight anticipation, the breathless scattering of panicked moths down his veins. But just like the other times tasted slightly different from one another, so this one does, too, only even more – Spring, yes, but this one marked by rain, and perhaps a lightning or two. But maybe it doesn’t need to be named. Maybe it’s one of those things that just – are, and in their _just being_ are too precious to be subjected to closer scrutiny. Sokka isn’t sure he even has the vocabulary, anyway, or if Zuko does. The closest word he can think of is _comfort_ , and with that he will stick, at least for now, while they’re trapped together in this box of ice.

It’s chaste enough, at first. But then, on their synchronized way up, they meet halfway, lips trailing up the pulse of the neck to the side of the jaw and the corner of the mouth, and – well, all things considered, the mouth-on-mouth kiss seems less like a surprise and more like an inevitability. Sokka accepts it with his eyes closed and his breath rushing to bleed with Zuko’s syrupy-hot one, which scalds the walls of his mouth as it goes down. Half-open mouths lean into one another, skirting hesitantly, trying for the best fit, still shy and only a wrong blink away from being spooked apart – or at least it feels like that to Sokka, who, heart still slamming to match Zuko’s, feels flayed, bared to Zuko’s heat and the coldness of everything else.

The connection sparks just long enough for Sokka to catch the last of the tremor that vibrates through Zuko’s body, and then, slowly, the heat is pulling away. Fingers of cold try to worm into the gap immediately. Sokka stays where he is – forces himself to – and draws in as much of Zuko’s hot, hot air as he can to keep the taste of him tingling in his mouth for just a little longer. 

Reluctantly, his eyes open – he knows, somehow, that that’s what’s expected of him, that he owes this to Zuko. The sight steals his breath. Zuko’s eyes burn like two summer suns, filmed over by something dark and slick, and he isn’t sure if the film is over Zuko’s eyes or his own. 

He hopes Zuko doesn’t ask him any of the questions that try to crowd on his own tongue. He has no answers. He can only watch, and wait, and want, the kind of wanting he has never allowed himself before, but thinks – hopes – he can now. 

Zuko’s tongue darts out to lick over his lips. He swallows, throat bobbing up and down. His lips stay parted just a tad, an invitation Sokka doesn’t want to – won’t – take for granted.

“Okay?” he asks quietly. 

Zuko never breaks eye contact as his head slowly nods. “Yeah.”

He leans in for another kiss, and Sokka meets him halfway. 

They seem to understand each other in this particular matter, at least. Keep it simple. Go with it, and take what is offered if it feels good. Sokka knows now that Zuko will not ask him about rebounds, about getting back at Suki, about all the different meanings this scene could take – and Sokka won’t ask him about desperation and needing comfort and all those darker things, coiled and tangled together down there in his head. Right now they’re just a pair of young people in the middle of a war, hurt and vulnerable, who have found a strange kind of connection and are trying to see where it will lead them. 

It feels good. It feels right. And warm, with Zuko breathing heat into his throat, and Sokka almost wishes he were a firebender too so he could give some of it back, but since he isn’t he just kisses Zuko all the harder, one hand coming up to cup the smooth white cheek on his healthy side. Zuko tilts his head into the touch ever so slightly and sighs into Sokka’s mouth, and – hand trembling – Sokka starts to bring the other up to the other cheek, but stops, taking a fistful of Zuko’s shirt instead. It feels too early for that. Too much has been forced out of Zuko without his permission already; Sokka won’t take any more.

He takes the warmth, though, because that’s something Zuko _wants_ to give. It trickles down his body, lazy like honey, spilling drops of sensations in a heady swirl of arousal that steadily mounts into frustration, his blood still too busy keeping him alive in the arctic air to spare much for his cock. But he knows that if it hadn’t been for the cold his insistent boner would be back with a vengeance, so maybe it’s all for the best.

They keep kissing long after the first pair of guards disappear, and are only forced apart when Sokka’s sinuses suddenly flare up with a tell-tale tingle. It’s the only warning he gets before he has to throw his head back and to the side and explode in a sneeze that makes his brain wobble. 

“Well,” he mumbles, wiping his nose on the gauntlet which now boasts a glimmering coating of ice. “That sure ruined the mood.”

Zuko blinks as he regards him, his eyes darkened and sheened-over with something that makes Sokka’s heart skip. His face looks like a smile is trying to push its way out, but it’s a wobbly, tender thing, all too easy to crack, so Sokka understands the need to keep it in. 

Still, he wishes desperately that Zuko didn’t have to. Aches with it, down to the very bones, even if they themselves feel weightless and maybe even a little floaty, what with the press of Zuko’s lips still hot against his own. It’s a conflicting set of feelings and Sokka shakes his head, wondering how the hell he hasn’t exploded with it all yet. 

Or how Zuko hasn’t, for that matter, if what he’s feeling is anything akin to his own maelstrom.

“Go,” Zuko urges quietly. “I can’t keep you warm like that for long.”

“I don’t know,” Sokka murmurs without consulting his brain. “Seemed to work pretty damn well just now.”

That coaxes the delicate smile a little closer to the surface. Sokka can see it in the twinkle of Zuko’s eyes, and bites down on the inside of his cheek as his heart leaps. 

So he hasn’t fucked up. That… he’s gonna need to think about that. Preferably when he’s not shivering out of his skin.

“I’ll find you,” he promises earnestly. “As soon as I can. They can’t keep you here forever.”

“I’ll be fine. You won’t. Go and take a hot shower. And…”

“Yeah?” 

A bloom of red stains the healthy side of Zuko’s cheek and he looks away. Sokka watches, fascinated, and thinks weakly, _Well, shit_. 

“Come to my cell when you can?”

Yeah, like Sokka can stay away. Not even a team of crazed rhinos could keep him out now. Still, his insides do a shaky pirouette, and he swallows, then leans in to plant a chaste kiss to Zuko’s forehead. One for the road.

“Sure I will,” he promises into a mouthful of black hair. “Sit tight. You’ll be out of here before you know it.”

He leaves the cooler eventually on legs made of jelly, and it hurts him physically to close the heavy door on Zuko. As soon as he does the hot air of the corridor hugs him like a long-lost lover, and another sneeze tears out of him with a violence that nearly sends him into the wall. 

Right. Shower. Right.

Skin itching with gooseflesh and returning circulation, teeth chattering and heart lighter than it has any right to be, he darts down to the showers, and the tingling of Zuko’s lips on his own stays with him long into the day.

 

***

 

The Boiling Rock is a huge place, housing people counting well in the hundreds. As such, it should be relatively easy to avoid someone if one was set on it. That’s the theory. 

Sokka _likes_ theory. Life, as always, has other ideas.

“Sokka,” he hears behind him in the yard after lunch, a soft, gentle call that freezes him in place better than any cooler could. “Can we talk?”

Shit. 

“Not sure it’s safe,” he says, turning over his shoulder to look at a concerned Suki. 

She glances to the sides, and Sokka follows her example. The crowd of prisoners and guards around them seem to largely mind their own business, but Suki moves into the shadow of a wall anyway, looking up at Sokka expectantly. He sighs, swallows down the tension rising up to his throat, and follows her on heavy, heavy legs, thinking that so many conversations in this place are being held in the shadows of walls that it probably constitutes an unspoken prison code by now, observed by guards and prisoners alike. You see people going into the shadows, you give them space. Simple yet effective. Sokka supposes that, with all those people living in such close quarters in what is essentially a giant metal soup bowl day by day, even the Boiling Rock must allow some leeway, or else this would all crumble in on itself. 

Which mostly serves to distract him from the fact that he can still feel Zuko’s lips. And that’s… Yeah, no one should be forced to talk to their ex-girlfriend with the tingle of someone else’s kiss on his skin. Sokka’s pretty sure that’s breaking at least several iron rules of the relationship etiquette book, if there is one. But does it count if the ex-girlfriend got a new girlfriend first?

Sokka shakes his head. They’re still in prison. He’s not gonna pollute his head even more with pointless deliberations when he needs it clear for strategic purposes. He stands next to Suki in the shadow, somewhat sheltered from prying eyes, and tries to regard her without too much guilt showing on his face.

If she sees any of it, she ignores it. Looking vaguely awkward herself, she glances away, rubbing at her elbow with the other arm. “Lien told me about the plan,” she murmurs. “I think it could work. Does Prince Zuko know?”

“I, uh.” _Forgot to tell him about it because I was too busy snogging him_. “I’m gonna tell him in the evening, when I can get to his cell. He’s in the cooler now.”

Some of the awkwardness clears from Suki’s face to be replaced by concern again. “Yeah, I heard,” she says. “And… Lien told me about the other thing, too.” For a moment, her face goes dark. “How is he?”

Oh damn. Sokka sighs, dropping his eyes to the ground. “Bad,” he whispers. “It’s bad.”

Suki nods. Murmurs something vague in an undertone. “That’s horrible,” she whispers darkly. “I didn’t think the Warden could actually – “

“Yeah.”

For a moment, they stand in silence, united in their shared horror. Sokka supposes that’s a connection too, of sorts. Everything else aside, they still remain on the same team, united against the madness. It was Suki’s bravery and compassion that first drew him to her, and that remains unchanged. Perhaps for now, it’s enough to be reminded of that. 

“You need to get him out of here,” Suki advises eventually. “Quickly. Before they decide to…”

“I know.” Sokka narrows his eyes at her, realization striking only now. “But what about you?” he asks, tilting his head to the side. “Do you even – you know, do you _want_ to go?”

“Ah.” An odd little smile plays on Suki’s lips, and she looks to the ground, scratching her arm some more. “You mean Lien.”

Sokka swallows. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Suki sighs. The smile changes into something both exasperated and warm, and Sokka’s stomach twists a little. “She’ll shove me out into that gondola with her own hands if she has to,” she murmurs. “I wasn’t – you know, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. You’re right to ask me. But we talked about it, and agreed that I must. The war isn’t over yet. There’s still something I can do. And if so, I can’t _not_ escape and help. We agreed on it. Lien wants it over just as much as we do.”

Sokka realizes he’s nodding before he can even think about it. “What about her? Will she want to come with us?”

“We talked about that, too.” Now Suki’s smile turns wistful. “She… it’s complicated. We agreed that it would be better… in some ways… that she stays. That way she can protect the prisoners here, and… well, if we stop this war, I’ll come for her. If not, she’ll know what happened. It’s better if one of us has a shot at making a difference in case the other…”

 _Dies_ , Sokka finishes in his thoughts with a painful lurch. The two of them actually sat down and had a conversation about this. He finds his throat choked up, and has to fiddle with the handcuffs strapped to his belt to hide some of it. 

“Okay,” he mumbles. “It’s your decision. We’re gonna need to talk all together, though that might not be possible if Zuko’s still in the cooler.” 

“We’ll have to make do,” Suki decides. “Meet us by the storage in block 3 after supper. We should have enough time to talk before lockdown.”

“I will,” Sokka promises.

Suki looks up at him then, and for a moment, her blue eyes gleam with warmth. 

“Are you okay?” she asks carefully.

Sokka finds he can hold her gaze this time. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the wriggling of worms in his stomach. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I am. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Suki says. “You’re a great guy.”

Sokka shrugs. His lips still tingle with warmth, which now seems to flare up, as though to keep him grounded. “Obviously,” he says, and finds a smile for her. “You just weren’t good enough for me. Don’t take it personally, few people are.”

Something flits through Suki’s face, something surprised and warm, and then she’s smirking, putting her hands on her hips. “Oh really,” she drawls. “That’s how it is?”

Sokka draws himself up a little. “Yup. That’s exactly how it is. Don’t worry, it’s only natural to feel bad but you’ll get over it.”

“I’ll do my best.” Suki holds her smirk for a heartbeat longer, and then her face settles into something soft and bright that yanks at him a little, having him seek out the support of the wall behind him. “Thank you, Sokka.”

Inwardly, he sighs, even as he shrugs again and smiles back at her. It’s strangely easy, and some of the warmth from her eyes pushes through to him, settling down past the phantom imprint of Zuko. “Hey, if you prefer cranky firebenders to my water tribe charms, obviously you don’t deserve the goods,” he says with a mock frown. 

_Though I guess I can see the appeal in cranky firebenders_ is what he doesn’t add, because banter or no, now is definitely not the time to be forthcoming with his own confessions. Not when Suki is so bright and relieved, and smiling at him unguardedly now, though some of the concern still lurks somewhere in her gaze. 

“I’ll meet you after supper,” she says before she turns and disappears into a crowd of red-clad inmates.

Sokka watches her go, leaning against the wall, and thinking with some degree of quiet astonishment that maybe there are many different kinds of love, and he just might be allowed to experience a few of them at the same time. 

And that, ultimately, it may not be a bad thing, because the thing about fire is that no two flames are ever the same.

 

***

 

“Tomorrow at noon,” Lien whispers. “That’s when the supply ship arrives. I know it’s not as good as an airship, but at least you’ll have some means of getting out of here.”

Sokka swears under his breath. “It’ll take us weeks to get back to the Western Air Temple by water.”

“How did you get here in the first place?” Suki asks in a whisper.

“Zuko had a war balloon. We crash-landed it because the steam from the lake meant we couldn’t –“

“But you’ll be out,” Lien insists. “And they won’t have any means to go after you until they send a messenger hawk for an airship to catch up with you.” 

And, just like that, Sokka’s brain screeches to a violent halt. “Messenger hawks,” he whispers. 

Both women look at him askance. “What of them?” Lien asks, one eyebrow up.

Sokka lets out a deep, deep breath. “You keep messenger hawks in here?”

“Of course. We need a way to communicate with the world outside.”

 _Oh thank fuck_. Sokka closes his eyes in the wave of relief, and almost kicks himself for being too stupid to think of it sooner. “Lien, how long would a messenger hawk take to deliver a missive to the Western Air Temple?”

She considers it just as Suki’s eyes light up. “Half a day, maybe?” 

“Right. And it took us an entire day just to fly here in the war balloon. If you send a message now, it should get to them by the time they wake up, so, counting on that, with Appa…” _Still too long. Shit._ “We’d have to postpone the escape until tomorrow night, but at least we’d have a better way out than a ship.”

“What are you talking about?” Lien asks just as Suki pipes in with a joyful, “So you found Appa!”

“The Avatar and the rest of my group are at the Western Air Temple,” he explains, looking at Lien. “They don’t know where we went. If we send them a message with the prison coordinates, they’ll fly here first thing and help bust us out.” Then, he turns to Suki and offers her a sheepish smile. “It’s a long story.”

Suki nods, face settling into determination once more. Lien, on the other hand, frowns at Sokka as though she’s in the process of reevaluating if he’s an idiot or merely a very stupid person. 

“You didn’t tell your friends you were about to break into the Boiling Rock,” she says slowly.

Sokka’s cheeks burn. “Yes, let’s maybe not –“

“And you didn’t think of asking them for help until now.”

“I didn’t know you had messenger hawks on hand! You could have mentioned that little fact a bit sooner, you know!”

“How else did you imagine we communicated? Smoke signals?”

“Maybe! How should I know? I’m not an expert on Fire Nation communication systems!”

“That’s quite enough of that, you two,” Suki cuts in, regarding both ex-boyfriend and girlfriend with exasperation that also twinkles with shades of amusement. “Let’s not waste any more time. Lien, can you send the hawk tonight?”

“Yeah.” Lien nods, shooting Sokka one more glare for good measure. “I’ll get on it right away.”

“Good. Then I think we can wait until tomorrow night, providing…”

She glances at Sokka questioningly, and he understands. 

“If things go pear-shaped, we’ll think on our feet,” he says grimly. “And at least Katara and the others will know what’s going on.”

“Right. Meeting adjourned.” Lien stretches up from her crouch and darts glances around the hall, then nods. “All clear. Team, disperse.”

“Who does she think she is, an army general?” Sokka mutters under his breath, and Suki chuckles when she too gets to her feet. 

“She certainly feels she’s more competent than any authority head in the country,” she whispers. “She’d gladly take over the Fire Lord’s job if someone let her.” 

“’Course I would,” Lien snaps over her shoulder. “I’d do a better job of it, too.”

“Prince Zuko might disagree,” Sokka muttered. 

“Might he? I rather got the feeling he’s not a fan of his father’s ruling methods either.” There’s a twinkle in Lien’s eye when she smirks. “Go to him. He’s probably not feeling so good right now.” 

Sokka nods, and watches the retreating women only for a moment before he heads the other way. Zuko is waiting for him, and he probably needs someone to warm him up.

 

***

 

He whispers the plan in Zuko’s ear in the darkness, their bodies pressed up against one another on the cot in a way that already feels familiar. New was the short, almost shy kiss which they both leaned into at the same time, and new are the kisses they are now stealing between words. Sokka keeps to his word and tries not to think too hard about this, but one thing is becoming clear: he is quickly getting used to this.

Because Zuko makes it too easy. With his warmth, and his burning eyes, and skin that is too soft to have ever been marred by spots – one day Sokka will ask him about it because that is simply not natural – and with the breath he is letting out into Sokka’s collarbone, he just – draws Sokka’s lips to himself, time and time again. Now that he knows he can just lean in and do it, it feels a bit like eating grapes: you just have to keep plucking them one by one until you feel sick, just because they are there. 

Anyway, Zuko’s lips, with all that fire on them, taste sweeter than grapes. Not that Sokka will be caught dead admitting it out loud. 

“Will you be all right until tomorrow?” Sokka asks quietly after yet another kiss he shamelessly steals in the darkness. “If they throw you into the cooler again?”

“I swam under the walls of the Northern Water Tribe capital and lived,” Zuko reminds him, voice dry. “I’ll manage.”

“Man.” Sokka tries to imagine the old – other? – Zuko, angry and ponytailed, diving into the icy waters of the North, and shudders. “You’re insane,” he offers, holding Zuko closer just in case some of that cold still lingers on him. 

Zuko breathes out deeply, pressing his healthy cheek into Sokka’s. “So I’ve been told.” Then, he tilts his face up again, and Sokka knows his cue; it’s the easiest thing in the world to kiss Zuko again, and then keep kissing, for as long as Zuko wants or needs it. 

That Zuko would want it in the first place is wonderful and bizarre enough, and Sokka doesn’t really know him much better than he does Suki, come to think of it, so he can’t say he knows what’s going on in that head. But he _thinks_ he understands. Sometimes you just need to feel someone else, and if that’s what does it for Zuko, Sokka will do his best so he can get it. 

Until Zuko whispers something that tilts Sokka off-kilter yet again.

“I’m not fragile.”

Sokka pauses, drawing away just so he can try and make out Zuko’s face in the gloom. “I never said you were,” he whispers. 

“You act like I am.” Zuko tenses in his arms. “I’m not. I won’t break.”

Sokka gulps. “I know you won’t. You’re strong. You handed my ass to me the first day we met, remember? That’s not something a guy can forget easily.”

Zuko shifts a little on the cot, then brings up a leg to push it between Sokka’s. “That’s not what I mean,” he whispers, voice going just a little too tight. “You’re careful with me because you think I can’t stand – more. I can. _He_ didn’t break me.”

He pushes his leg up to brush against Sokka’s crotch, and Sokka hisses. Fuck. He’s been doing so well ignoring that part, focusing on Zuko rather than on the tingling whirlpool of need that has been steadily building up in his traitorous adolescent body, but now it’s all going to Koh’s lair because his cock leaps eagerly at the contact and he can’t do anything to stop it.

 _Focus, Sokka. Focus._ What’s going on here is darker than it may first seem, and he needs his head clear for whatever is coming if he’s to have a hope of bringing them through it unscarred. 

“I know he didn’t,” he says carefully over the hitch in his voice. “He can’t. But he did something terrible nonetheless, and I don’t want to push you into anything you might not be comfortable with. It’s okay to – “

Zuko presses into him. Sokka is pushed onto his back, pinned down by the weight of firebender climbing on top of him, and has to close his eyes against the screaming urge to just tilt his hips up a little and _rub_. 

“I need – “ Zuko breathes heavily, thickly, into Sokka’s neck, his hair tickling the underside of Sokka’s jaw. “I need to – fuck, I need to get him out.” He grinds his hips against Sokka once, a brilliant, agonizing spark of friction that electrifies Sokka’s thoughts into nothing for a moment, and then – “Need to feel something else, I can’t – I need – “

Oh shit. Sokka squeezes his eyes shut and closes his arms around Zuko’s trembling back on impulse, and prays, and prays, and prays. 

“Zuko, is that really what you want?” he manages to ask, face full of shaggy hair. When his only response is silence and increasingly haggard breathing, he silently counts to three and adds, “Because I’m ready to go. You can probably feel how ready I am to go, which, um, yeah, not awkward at all or anything. Just making it clear, if it wasn’t for – that asshole, and what he’s done, I’d be all over you quicker than you can say _handjob_.” He holds Zuko even closer now, and can feel every tremble that begins to wash in waves over that strong, warm body. 

He can feel something else, too: he is hard, but Zuko is not. And that, more than anything, tells him everything he needs to know.

“I understand wanting to prove you’re strong,” he whispers. “That’s how I got us into this mess in the first place. I understand wanting to – stop feeling what’s happened. But before we do anything, I just – I need to be sure if that’s what you want, or what you feel you _should_ want.” Zuko jerks as if to get off, but Sokka tightens his arms around him, holding him still. “It’s okay to feel hurt,” he whispers urgently. “It’s okay to feel vulnerable. It’s okay to let go. You don’t have to play invincible for my sake, or to protect me from your own hurt. I’m the last person to judge you because I _get_ it, okay? I get it.” Wanting to prove you’re not a child but a man. Wanting others to see you as strong. Wanting to protect, to take care, to hold it together. Sokka gets it, by Koh he gets it. “I won’t judge,” he repeats. “You’ve been through so much shit, probably more than you’ll ever talk about, and you – I can’t imagine how you’ve been holding it together. You’re amazing, Zuko, okay? Stupid, insane and amazing, and you just keep going no matter what. I can’t imagine what it’s taking out of you. But, listen to me: _it’s okay to let go_.”

For a moment, as though to be contrary, Zuko keeps himself completely still. Only the breath that comes out of him thicker and thicker lets Sokka know he’s still there, that he hasn’t passed out. And then his shoulders tremble, just enough that Sokka can feel it, and he holds him close, thinking, _Cry, you stubborn son of a bitch, cry if you need to._

The trembling gets worse. The breath on his neck hitches. And then Zuko does.

He cries silently at first, releasing wet, jagged shards of breaths and dripping hot tears onto Sokka’s neck. But the thing about fire is that it tends to spread if it has something to feed on, and there’s more than enough in Zuko to burn this entire prison down, and soon he is tightening fists into Sokka’s shirt, choking on thick sobs and allowing himself to, just once, fall apart.

And Sokka holds him close, and strokes his hair, and looks up at the dark ceiling, and blinks his own tears away, and promises the dark thing inside of him that it will feed tomorrow. The Warden’s face hovers over him, and he commits every ugly, repulsive detail to memory. 

That’s only the tip of the mountain of Zuko’s hurt – he can guess this much, now. But it’s more than enough, and tomorrow…

Tomorrow he’ll make the son of a bitch pay. 

 

***

 

And then tomorrow comes, and nothing goes according to plan. 

It starts in the morning. Sokka barely has time to unglue his bleary eyes open and peer into the gloom of the cell, only a little lighter than it was at night, and tighten his grip on the warm body on top of him that’s causing him to overheat, before the door crashes open and a shadow falls on the cot.

A shadow that nearly has Sokka swallowing his own tongue.

Zuko gasps awake just as Princess Azula says, “Good morning, brother. Oh dear, I hope I’m not interrupting?”

After that, many things happen all too quickly. There are hands descending on both of them, pulling Zuko off him, pulling Sokka off the cot; there are guards shouting, “What are you doing here!” and “That’s the new guy!” and “Who are you?!”; there is the flash of firebending, first red and then blue, before Zuko is tackled to the ground; there is pain when Sokka falls to the ground too, his arms twisted behind him and a knee pressed into the small of his back. 

His eyes water. He fights to keep them open, and sees first the upturned nose of Azula’s boots, then her smug smirk when she kneels to peer into his face. 

“The Water Tribe peasant.” She shakes her and tut-tuts, turning to look at her brother. “Really, Zuzu, even you can do better. Mai won’t be very pleased when she finds out you left her for _this_.”

“Mai is here?” Sokka can hear Zuko struggling against the bulky men keeping him down.

Azula shrugs, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off her armor. “I tried to convince her to stay,” she says airily. “But apparently she wanted _closure_. Isn’t that sweet? I suppose even Mai feels _something_ from time to time… Well, this sure is turning out to be more interesting than I thought.”

Then, she draws up to her full height again and clasps her hands behind her back. “Get _this_ ,” she nudges Sokka’s face with her boot, “out of here and into a cell somewhere. I’m sure you’ll find the space. And take my brother to the interrogation room. There’s so much catching-up to do, and I can’t wait to hear _all_ about his exciting adventures with the Avatar...”

Sokka tries to struggle. Really, he does. His heart diving in frantic panic, he does his best to break free and stay by Zuko’s side, kicking, biting, flailing; but there’s only so much he can do against three men three times his size. When they decide his fussing gets too much one of them simply knocks him in the head with a truncheon. Pain explodes at the back of his skull, shooting out weightless white, and Zuko’s furious scream is the last thing he registers before he falls to his knees and hears nothing at all. 

 

***

 

Much, much later – though it’s hard to tell in a windowless room – he is sitting on his very own cot, knees drawn up and head hanging low, and listening to the silence.

It must be the solitary ward. He’s read about it in the files, even though he’s never ventured there personally. The place where they keep the misbehaving and extra-dangerous prisoners who are not firebenders. Like time-out for naughty children, only with the added cruelty of narrow, dank walls and the absolute stillness of nothing at all stretching as far as the ear can hear. For all he knows, he’s the only breathing soul on the entire floor, and the sheer loneliness of it is staggering.

His head hurts like a bitch. But even worse is the worry and there is no salve for _that_ , is there. He can only sit here and hope for the best, because nothing good will come of him ruining his fingers trying to claw his way out.

He has the burning ache in his hands to show for it, anyway.

The worst thing about the absolute silence, he thinks, is that it leaves plenty of room for his imagination to come up with noise of its own, and most of it sounds like Zuko screaming. Black, black thoughts swirl before his eyes – he knows by now that it’s useless trying to stop them. 

Azula could be doing _anything_.

The dark thing claws into his heart, worms in there, and crouches in wait. 

When the door to his cell opens with a squeal of metal, he jerks in surprise, ready for the worst – and then very nearly laughs.

“There you are,” Lien pants, out of breath. Her face is reddened under the helmet, as though she’s been running. “Come on. No time to lose.”

Sokka is leaping to his feet before she’s even done talking.

They run together down silent corridors – lockdown, is it? – and whenever they pass guards, Lien doesn’t even bother pretending; she simply knocks them out, one neat punch at a time. Sokka has just enough presence of mind to realize that she is burning her bridges as surely as if she had poked the Warden himself in the eye, and that’s… worrying. Still, if that’s her decision, he’s not gonna complain, and the interrogation room is close to the isolation ward as far as Sokka knows, so they should get to Zuko soon…

A figure steps out into the corridor to face them, and Sokka chokes on a breath.

Mai looks at them both coolly, then levels her steady bright gaze at Sokka. “You’re with Zuko?” she asks.

Sokka holds her gaze. “Yes.”

The girl looks at him for three heartbeats exactly. Sokka knows. He’s counting. He fully expects these three heartbeats to be his last, after all. He remembers Mai’s flying knives all too well, and waits for them to fly at him, skewering him all at once in a dozen gleams of steel. Next to him, Lien is a solid, tense presence, and he wonders if he can shield her in time or if she’s planning to shield _him_ , and he tenses just so his muscles will be ready –

Mai steps aside. 

“Get him,” she says in her even, smoky voice, and though it sounds just as dispassionate as always, there’s a shine to her eyes that Sokka doesn’t miss. “He’s in the last room down the hall.”

 _Then_ steel gleams in her wide sleeve, and Sokka swallows nervously, expecting to be skewered after all; but she only offers the dagger to him hilt-first, expression tight and unreadable. 

Slowly, Sokka takes the dagger, then looks up into her eyes. They seem as sharp as the blade he’s holding, that is to say, very. And then he thinks, _She knows_. He doesn’t know where the conviction comes from, or how Mai could know, the Warden being her uncle and all; but when he holds Mai’s intense gaze, he knows that she knows, and his grip on the dagger tightens. Suddenly the silent message is clear.

Revenge, from both of them. 

And, _She actually does love him_. 

Lien tugs him by the sleeve of his prison shirt – Sokka breaks the connection and looks away, and starts sprinting after her down the hall, Mai’s dagger cold and heavy in his hand. He looks over his shoulder once. 

She is no longer there.

 

***

 

At first it goes well. It really does. They burst into the interrogation room together and incapacitate the guards, surprise and momentum on their side. Sokka is trying not to use the dagger unless he absolutely has to, and he doesn’t even have time to allow all the anger out before he is putting it to the Warden’s throat and telling him to back off. Zuko, who has been forced to the floor – Sokka wants to throw up when he notices – leaps to his feet immediately, wild-eyed and streaked with blood-curling panic that is quickly turning to rage.

Sokka doesn’t begrudge him the punch to the Warden’s face that stains Zuko’s knuckles with blood, but one is all they have time for. Azula is not here, but she is bound to hear the commotion, so the three of them drag the Warden out and use him as a hostage to get Suki out of her cell and then move hurriedly out to the gondola site.

It should have worked. It _would_ have worked. 

But the Warden, who had been going along with them silently up until now, suddenly jerks from Sokka’s grip and kicks him in the shins, and slashes fire at them. Sokka ducks just in time, but not quickly enough to avoid getting burnt altogether, and when he lands on the ground there is an angry patch of red hissing on his left arm.

It’s a free-for-all after that, and it turns ugly _fast_. 

Zuko and Lien form two living shields of fire between them and the swarm of firebenders descending on them, and there’s more, and more, and more, and now he can see Azula standing to the side and observing the fight with gleeful interest, Ty Lee a pink spot at her side. They’re not even joining the fight because this looks _bad_ , this looks really, really bad, and they’re gonna be overpowered, there’s too many people, too many of them…

Sokka spots the Warden just as they’re about to drown under the deluge of guards. He’s in front, trying to get through Zuko’s furious-but-controlled blasts of firebending, and he’s not looking at anyone else. Zuko is his sole focus. Sokka dodges a blast of fire that nearly singes his hair, rolls over to Zuko’s side of the fight, and thinks, well, if they’re gonna get caged again at least he can take the bastard with them.

He lunges at the man, using momentum to throw them both to the ground, and is vaguely aware of the ringing silence of cease-fire when he straddles the Warden to the ground and presses the blade so far into his neck that a faint strip of blood begins to bead along its sharp line. 

The silence that drops on the prison yard hardly registers. His ears are too full of his pounding blood, and his own panting, and the steady thrum of the dark thing that is crawling out of his heart and into his limbs.

He presses the dagger a little deeper, and, despite the burn, his hand stays steady.

“I’ll kill him,” he calls into the silence that is pregnant with expectation. “I will, unless you let us pass.” He is still looking into the Warden’s eyes, cold and bright with fury, and wonders if that’s what those eyes looked like when the bastard ordered the thugs to hold Zuko down so he could _yank his pants down and_ –

“Sokka,” Zuko says somewhere in the distance, voice weak as though struggling through a layer of cotton.

And then Azula steps forward. Sokka looks at her just in time to feel the air around her fingers thicken with electricity. 

“Well,” she says with a shrug. “We can always hire a new Warden.”

She is just beginning to move into the stance, air crackling with lightning sparks, when the sun is suddenly blotted out by a giant shadow as a deep beastly roar that, at first, Sokka can’t place, shakes the air. A water whip slashes between him and the princess, causing her to step back.

“Don’t you dare!” cries Katara, jumping off of Appa’s saddle and aiming another whip at Azula. She stands between her and Sokka now, arms coated with water, the blue of her clothes deeper than the sky and achingly relieving. Sokka can hear Aang’s voice somewhere to his right, urging, “Come on, get on, we’re getting you out!”

Sokka should feel comforted by that. He doesn’t. Mostly because the dark thing has, by now, grown so big it’s pushed everything else out.

Still, he risks tearing his eyes away from the Warden just for a moment, just to see. To his right, Appa is hovering by the gondola site, and Aang is airbending the guards away just as Suki runs to climb onto the saddle, Lien right behind her. Zuko is shooting looks between Appa, Azula and Sokka, and the message there is clear: _Hurry up. Leave it_. 

Sokka tears his eyes away and looks at the Warden. The thin line where the blade is pressing fills with red, and when he looks into those furious eyes again, he thinks, it’d be so easy to press on, and then keep pressing, coax more of the blood out and make him _hurt_ –

“Sokka!” Katara cries, looking over her shoulder. “Get moving!”

She is keeping Azula at bay, but they’re evenly matched, and Azula is trying to summon lightning again. As Sokka watches, throat tight and mind strangely detached, he sees Zuko leaping in to help, distracting Azula from her motions with well-aimed blasts of fire. To their right, Lien and Suki are trying to keep Ty Lee away from Appa, and giving ground.

He looks to the Warden again. The blade stays steady.

“I should kill you anyway,” he whispers, through the same detachment, as though he’s standing next to his own body and just looking on.

“Go ahead,” the Warden spits. “Pup.”

The dark thing roars, and Sokka brings his hand up. 

Zuko’s fingers close over his wrist.

“Come on,” he urges with a vicious kick to the Warden’s stomach. “Sokka, come _on_!” And then, in a whisper, “You don’t want Katara and Aang see you kill a man, do you?”

Sokka swallows, and it feels like a slap to the face. _No_ , he realizes. _No, he doesn’t_. 

It seems that all of his soul leaves him, then, in a rush of breath. Weakly, he staggers to his feet, allowing Zuko to pull him up and after him towards the saddle, fire and water and air battling all around them and shielding their way. Just like that, he is empty, drained of everything, and he can barely breathe when they help him up on Appa, and even then it's difficult. Aang is shouting something, and so is Katara, and somewhere to his left Suki is crying Lien’s name over the crack of lightning that barely misses Appa, and then they are ascending, more lightning tearing through the sky after them, the sun hot on their faces and the steam from the volcano lake thinning out into the white puff of clouds.

Sokka slumps against the wood of the saddle, and breathes, and breathes, and breathes, because the thing about fire is that once it’s doused, it dies instantly, leaving only smoke. 

 

***

 

“I eavesdropped on your little conversation,” Toph explains from where she’s slumped against the rock of the fountain, picking at her toes. “Did you honestly think you could sneak around with the world’s greatest earthbender right there under your nose? I thought, I’ll give you two losers a couple of days, and if you don’t come back I’ll just tell the others so they can come get you. The hawk arrived shortly after Aang and Katara set off.” She shrugs, grinning her wolfish grin at them. “Obviously that field trip didn’t quite go as planned.”

Sokka can only stare at her, picking aimlessly around in his bowl of rice. 

The Western Air Temple is dunked in shadow, with only their little fire licking light along the stone walls. For the most part, it’s silent. Most of the explanations and lectures and ranting has already happened, leaving everyone drained of steam, exhausted and slumped over their food. Suki is already gone – she excused herself half an hour ago, and is probably dealing with leaving Lien behind in her own way. Sokka was too out of it to notice what happened, but they told him Lien was chi-blocked by Ty Lee and it was already too late to go back for her. At first Katara looked like she might go after Suki, but Sokka convinced her to leave it. Sometimes one simply needs to be alone, and, after spending so much time in the Boiling Rock, few people deserve it more than Suki.

Sokka really wants to leave too, and when Zuko finally stands up after Toph’s words so does he. Katara looks at him with questions in her eyes, but he just shakes his head and mouths, “Later,” and wanders after Zuko to the bedroom he showed him into back when he was a very different person. 

The door closes after them, and they regard each other silently, now both of them in prison rags.

“His life wasn’t for you to claim,” Zuko whispers finally. “It’s my revenge.” 

Sokka gulps. Nods. Feels the throb of the burn on his arm and the phantom imprint of the leathery hilt of the dagger. “I get it,” he whispers, though he doesn’t really and probably has no right to say so.

“Do you regret that I stopped you?”

The breath he takes scrapes over his throat, and he takes a moment to try and muzzle the dark thing, disappointed at having been denied the blood it was promised. “No,” he confesses. “You’re right. It – I didn’t want them to see me like this.”

“Aang wouldn’t understand,” Zuko whispers. “Katara – might.”

Yes. Yes. Sometimes Sokka looks at his little sister and wonders, and thinks that, maybe, she just might. It’s a scary thought, and one that opens him up right in the middle. He takes a step closer to Zuko just to keep himself from falling apart.

Zuko reaches out to him, and takes him by the hand, and leads him to the bed without a word. Sokka follows willingly enough, and falls almost bonelessly on the bed next to Zuko, suddenly too tired to even lift and arrange his limbs properly. But that’s okay, because Zuko seems just as drained, and they cuddle up like they did in the cell, close as they can even though this bed is much larger.

Sokka’s eyes get heavy, but he fights to keep them open just a little longer and whispers, “What now?”

Zuko tucks his head under Sokka’s chin. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want…” Sokka swallows, hand coming up to stroke Zuko’s head all on its own. “Do you want it to stop?”

Zuko is silent for a heartbeat or two. “Do _you_?”

Right. Right. Sokka puts his arms over him, drawing him closer, closes his eyes and takes the chance.

“No.”

He doesn’t, Spirits help him, he doesn’t. But he will if Zuko tells him to. After all, _they_ never made any promises either.

But then Zuko heaves out a deep breath, and shifts closer, and presses his lips to the underside of Sokka’s jaw. 

“Me neither,” he whispers, and nips lightly at the soft skin there. 

Sokka gives himself a moment to sink into relief, then pushes Zuko onto his back so he can kiss him properly.

For now, that’s enough. Enough to kiss, and hold and touch, and enough to fall asleep in a tired tangle.

Because the thing about fire is that it’s fickle, and transient, and can be snuffed out all too easily, but while it burns, it’s beautiful.


End file.
